


To Deal with the Devil

by NoteInABottle



Series: Shizaya - Warehouse AU [2]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bittersweet Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Drug Dealing, Emotional Manipulation, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Friendship, Gangs, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Raijin Days, Sexual Fantasy, Turf wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2020-11-23 07:43:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 49,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20888567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoteInABottle/pseuds/NoteInABottle
Summary: There's a rumor going around amongst Shizuo's classmates at Raijin High School, a superstition:Beware the devil of the crossroads, with his red eyes and white skin. He’ll give you what your heart desires but he’ll take your soul in exchange.Prequel for "To Kill Your Darlings"





	1. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(In the end, in the dark, behind iron bars, Shizuo wondered where everything had gone wrong.)_

A monster walked the streets of Ikebukuro, and its name was Shizuo Heiwajima.

The street was wide and deserted, except for the dozen or so delinquents that lay on the ground. Most were unconscious, and the rest were in too much pain to stand up.

Alone in the middle of the sunset-soaked street, Shizuo felt at his fractured fingers and discovered fingernails crusted with blood. He clenched his fingers into a fist. The pain shot through his arm, then through his spine, and screamed insistently throughout his entire body until he finally relaxed his grip.

The echo of pain still remained. He endured it, just like he always had. The pain made his head clear faster.

He wondered if he deserved this pain after all. There had been a series of events that had led to this, and it had all started with him wandering around the streets like he was looking for trouble. Maybe, somewhere in the beginning along that chain of decisions, he had sealed his fate.

Or maybe it had been inevitable from the start - an unfortunate but predictable result of his strength and this city.

The city was rotting. Overgrown weeds covered abandoned playgrounds, where no children played and no adults watched. There was fading paint on storefronts, and boarded up apartments. A heavy stench of decay blanketed the city, of corruption and vice, infecting its inhabitants.

Delinquents seemed to thrive in this atmosphere. They loitered about in corners and blocked up the sidewalks. Usually they just stood there and looked threatening, wordlessly forcing people to cross over to the other side of the street.

But then there was Shizuo, not exactly looking for a fight, but not avoiding one either.

He spent nearly all of his time amongst the rotting cement and cracked streets, living the life of a delinquent, alone and with no company.

He wasn’t out here because he wanted to be; he was out here because he couldn’t bear the thought of going home.

After high school had started, and his temper had gotten worse and worse. The atmosphere at home had become unbearable. His parents agonized over his wounds, even after they had healed without a trace. His entire adolescence had been a series of trips to the hospital, of plaster casts for broken bones, bandages for scrapes, and ice for bruises. His parents had spent countless hours ferrying him in and out of the emergency room, had met each incident with more and more strain lining their faces.

Now, they walked on eggshells around him. Conversations would cut short when he walked in the room, and his parents always had a guilty look in their eyes when they looked at him. And Kasuka - just the thought of Kasuka nearly sent him into despair. His younger brother had become a shadow of his former self, dead-eyed and expressionless.

Shizuo knew why, even though his parents didn’t; he had lost his temper too many times at home, and Kasuka had paid the price.

He tried to control himself, but his impulsive nature had not tempered with age. The hellish years of his middle school, as he went through puberty, had irrevocably damaged the peace he had once found at home with his family.

So, in an attempt to give Kasuka some breathing room at home, and to spare his family from his presence, Shizuo kept as far away from them as possible.

He couldn’t hurt them if he wasn’t around, after all.

No matter where he went, though, no matter how much he tried to mind his own business, something always ended up happening. He would be recognized, corralled into a group of jeering faces, until he lost his temper. Someone would bump into him, sometimes on purpose, and demand a fight right then and there. Then, his vision would blur, his body would act on its own, and he would come to his senses in the midst of a bloody scene with broken bodies on the ground and the warmth of adrenaline fading slowly from his veins.

He wasn’t looking for trouble, but it seemed that trouble always seemed to find him on the streets.

Maybe the school could have helped him – it was their policy to prevent bullying after all. But Shizuo could hardly claim that he had been bullied when the faces he would accuse were now smashed and bruised beyond recognition by his own fist. They had grouped up on him unfairly, and yet he was the one walking away while the others lay shattered and groaning on the ground.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t defend himself. Violence was likely going to be more effective than anything else he could think of. But when Shizuo contemplated his future of bloodied hands and torn skin, he felt like tearing the world apart.

Shizuo turned away from the scene of carnage, searching up the empty street, looking into the windows of dilapidated offices buildings, waiting for the telltale motion of someone ducking out of sight. He saw nothing, not even a shadow of movement. And yet, there was an itch between his shoulders, like someone was holding a dagger an inch away from his skin. He knew he wasn't imagining things, knew that someone must be close by.

He was being watched.

He forced himself to ignore that sensation, just for a moment. Shizuo turned to pick up his bag, dropped in an overgrown ditch on the side of the road, and checked it. Nothing had been stolen, thankfully. Everyone had been too preoccupied with dealing with him. So, whoever was watching didn’t seem to be a thief.

Shizuo shrugged the strap over his shoulder, winced at the twinge of pain that ran down his arm as he discovered another gash, running across his shoulder. He had brought fists to a knife fight, and this was what he got for it.

A raven flew overhead and landed on a nearby lamppost, drawn in by the scent of blood. Its glossy black wings shone in the light. The sound of its caw cut through the air, temporarily silencing the groans rising from the ground.

Shizuo followed its movement.

It met his stare with glassy black eyes and cocked its head as if to say, _got anything to show me?_

Fury rose in him, even though he knew it was just a bird. He picked up a stray stone, cracked loose from the pavement. Before he could throw it, the raven fluttered its wings and took off into the reddish-orange sky.

Shizuo watched the bird rise above the rooftops - 

\- and there, silhouetted against the eerie sky, was a dark-haired figure with his hands in his black jacket.

Their eyes met, and in the next instant, the figure was gone.

After overcoming his initial shock, Shizuo took several steps toward the building. Then, he forced himself to stop, realizing that there would be no way to get up to that roof.

It was difficult to make himself stop. He wanted to dig his fingers into the blue apartment building and bring it down. He wanted to throw himself into a chase that wouldn’t stop until he had caught his quarry. But by the time he went up all those flights of stairs, that person would be long gone.

_I knew it_, he thought fiercely. He _hadn't _imagined that gaze on his back, following him around for the past few weeks. He had been right, even though nobody had believed him. _I have a stalker_.

He realized that his fingers were still clutching the stone. With an effort, he made himself drop it. It clattered against the asphalt at his feet. After a moment, he turned to go home. It was getting late, and he did not want to be out after dark.

More ravens flew by, noisy with the sound of their wings fluttering through the air, but Shizuo was too preoccupied with navigating home to notice.

By the time he exited the street, for some reason, he was smiling.

.

"I was right," he said to Shinra, the next day, as soon as he walked into the classroom and sat down at his desk. "I saw him, the guy that's been following me. I didn't imagine it."

They were both waiting for classes to start, and the room was filled with the chatter of other students. Shinra was lounging against the window of the classroom, where the bright morning light shone through in large swaths, filling up the room with the crisp, clear light of winter.

Frost still covered the windows, although the worst of the snowy season had already passed. It climbed up the edges, formed icy patterns across the glass, where Shinra had been tracing them idly. He came away from the glass as Shizuo approached, and eyed his hands with sudden curiosity.

"Did he do that to you?" Shinra asked, indicating the splint on Shizuo's fingers, a white strip of fabric binding them together against a flat piece of wood.

Then, showing a startling depth of understanding, Shinra added: "Or did you do it to yourself?"

Shizuo took off the splint and showed him his fingers. The doctor had recommended keeping them on for at least two weeks, but his fingers no longer hurt, and he hated the feeling of having the stiff fabric immobilizing him. A little impatiently, he said: "This proves it - that I have a stalker. And I'm pretty sure he's from this school."

"They look fine," Shinra said, with no sympathy at all, inspecting Shizuo's newly healed fingers. "Did they heal overnight?"

"Yes," Shizuo said because he knew that Shinra wouldn't move on unless his curiosity was satisfied.

"That's amazing," Shinra said, with all the awe of a scientist observing a new chemical reaction.

Shizuo made a noise of frustration and slammed his fist against his desk. "_Listen to me_," he growled.

The entire classroom went silent as all conversation died, and a sudden chill permeated the air, freezing all vocal cords and stilling all movement. For a couple of seconds, it was as if the room had turned into a picture. Nobody was looking at Shizuo, but he felt their attention on him anyway.

"Shit," he muttered, breaking the silence with all the grace of a stone smashing through glass. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell."

Shinra put his hands together and bowed in apology. "Sorry," he said, grinning in that pacifying way of his - too formal to be sincere but too sincere to be a mockery. "What were you saying?"

“It was nothing,” Shizuo said, more for other people’s ears than for Shinra’s.

Conversation resumed in the classroom, in fits and starts, as the tension melted away. Shizuo didn't say anything for a long time, afraid of killing the room's atmosphere once again.

He hadn't meant to sound so agitated. It was just that, _finally_, he was starting to get some answers. Over the past few weeks, somebody had been following him as he left the school and wandered the streets of Ikebukuro on his own, all the way until nightfall. It was just that, whenever he looked over his shoulder, there was no one there, and whenever he tried to call them out, he got no response.

About his stalker, Shizuo knew this much: They were probably a Raijin student, one who didn't participate in any club activities or part-time jobs. Otherwise, that itch between his shoulders wouldn't have started so soon after leaving school. They were good at hiding from sight, good enough that at first, Shizuo had dismissed that feeling of being watched.

The problem was, that certainty had grown stronger and stronger over time, despite all of his other senses telling him otherwise.

He was beginning to think he was going mad, until last night.

After last night, Shizuo now had several more pieces of information: They were male, with dark hair and red eyes. His height would be hard to tell, but Shizuo didn't think he would be particularly tall or particularly short. So, probably, an average height for a high school student. Other traits - athletic, or at least agile enough to keep up with a person on foot while traversing over rooftops. Not particularly law-abiding, because Shizuo could hardly imagine the law allowing someone to trespass on random buildings that easily. And crazy, for stalking someone with a reputation as bad as Shizuo's was.

It was strange to think that Shizuo had a better understanding of his stalker's personality than a clear picture of his face. And yet, there was one physical trait that stood out sharply.

"Shinra," he said abruptly. "Do you know anyone with red eyes?"

Shinra had gone back to staring out the window, but now he turned to Shizuo with a questioning tilt of his head.

There was a pause as Shinra pondered the question. "Red eyes? That's unusual."

"Do you know any or not?" Shizuo was already regretting asking. It sounded like a ridiculous question. He wondered if Shinra even remembered their previous conversation, and would put two and two together.

"Sorry," Shinra shrugged. "I don't think anyone here has red eyes. Do you mean red-eye as in a bloodshot eye? It's possible if the blood vessels in your eyes hemorrhage, the blood could fill up your -"

"No," Shizuo said flatly. "I didn't mean that."

Thankfully, Shinra cut off before he could go any further. A few classmates who had overheard their conversation now edged further away from them, looking disturbed.

Shizuo looked down at his desk, frowning in thought. He had been sure of what he had seen - the memory was still as clear to him as if he had taken a picture of that moment. But what Shinra said had been right. He had never seen anyone at school that looked like that, and if he had, he surely would have remembered red eyes. It was a complete mystery.

_I'll figure out who you are_, he thought at the image in his head. _Just you wait_.

.

The next day, there was something written on his desk in a neat, elegant hand.

Shizuo stared at the marks, carved into the wood with the nib of a pen, so faint that he could only see it from where he was sitting down. He reached out and traced the words.

_I'm not a stalker, _it read. _I just love watching you fight._

He barely paid attention to classes that day. The teacher droned on and on at the front of the classroom, not even caring that half the students were asleep at their desks. Shizuo tried to look around without staring, but surely no one in his class had red eyes, not even the sleeping students.

That meant that his conversation yesterday had been overheard. That meant his maybe-red-eyed stalker was watching him, indirectly, even when he was at school.

Shizuo returned his attention to his desk, to the message written there.

Strangely, his heart was hammering in his chest. He knew now, for certain, that he had been right about his stalker being a student. He also knew, with startling clarity, that they must be in the same building, maybe only a couple of rooms away from each other.

By the end of the day, he had added a line underneath, written just as imperceptibly, carved easily into the soft wood with a pen.

_Don't you have other things to do in life, besides watching me suffer?_

He was tempted to sit there until nightfall, to wait for some red-eyed boy to show up in the classroom, but he knew it wouldn't work. Shizuo went straight home that day, instead of wandering the streets like he usually did. For some reason, nothing could irritate him, not his parents' fussing over his removal of the splint, not even Kasuka's dead-eyed silence.

The next day, a new line had appeared.

_I think you have it wrong. The ones who suffer are the opponents you beat up. I enjoy watching their suffering, not yours._

_That's messed up_, he wrote, not even pausing to think before writing it down. After lunch, to his surprise, another line had appeared.

_Why? Don't you enjoy it when the gangs come looking for you? Doesn't it make you feel special?_

Shizuo could almost imagine someone saying the line, with a teasing smile, with absolutely no regard for Shizuo's famous temper. He had no idea why he felt this way, but he was fairly certain that the writer had a voice that would linger over vowels and drip with fake sincerity.

He realized that the boy had stolen into this classroom, had sat in his chair, all without drawing attention or inciting comment from the people around him. A shiver went through him, both hot and cold at once.

The words on the desk seemed to whisper at him, secretive and insidious, like a suggestion, like temptation.

_No. _He wrote, almost gouging the wood before he remembered to be careful. _I hate it. I wish they would leave me alone._

He didn't get a reply until the next day, and this time there were two lines written instead of one.

_What if I told you there was a way to make them leave you alone forever?_

Shizuo froze before reading the next line, filled with sudden, unexpected hope.

_Tomorrow afternoon_, _meet me in the warehouse behind the school._


	2. The Warehouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(He thought - I never should have gone there in the first place. It was never going to be worth it. Better to suffer alone, better to wonder forever if I was the monster they all made me out to be, than to go there and find out that I actually was.)_

The land behind Raijin High School was largely undeveloped, with dirt paths instead of poured cement. Tall weeds poked up through melted patches of snow, a testament to the total lack of the school gardener's attention in this area. A tall chained fence was set up to surround the empty lot, melting into the woods, rusted and broken through. Several sections leaned over heavily, trampled by years of students climbing over it.

The warehouse itself was large, gleaming aluminum-silver, the metal rooftops still dusted by a light layer of snow. It stood nearly two stories high, but seemed empty and hollow, like the abandoned shell of some massive animal. Piles of gym equipment had been shoved up against its sides, from mats to goalposts to large baskets of deflated soccer balls. The land around it was packed, bare earth, leading to a small asphalt parking lot that narrowed into a one-lane road, which then snaked around behind the fence into the distance.

Even before Shizuo had gone halfway down the path leading to the warehouse, he realized that he would not be alone, as he had expected.

After the first layer of trees rose up to hide the sight of the school behind him, Shizuo heard the low buzz of a crowd of voices rising up into the air, low and tense and sounding like a kicked beehive. When he had gone a bit further down the road, he began to see people through the trees.

They were kids from his school, with the sleeves of their uniforms rolled up and their coats undone. Some weren't even wearing their coats at all, even in this cold weather.

He stopped to count and gave up before he had reached twenty. There seemed to be twice that, maybe more. He recognized a few faces as some who had attacked him before. They were delinquents, all students that had skipped classes to come here. But _why? _And for _what_?

The grass had long since been trampled to dust beneath their feet. Cigarette butts and broken bottles littered the ground. The delinquents clustered together in groups of four to twelve, milling about. The air trembled with the nervous energy that was always there when a fight was about to break out.

Shizuo felt his heart rate pick up, felt adrenaline shooting into his system. He tried to keep his breathing even, tried to keep it under control. He knew the logical thing to do would be to turn around and leave, right now, right this instant. But he had already come this far, and something told him that if he left, he would regret it later.

As he stepped out of the treeline and came into view, all eyes turned to stare at him. Just at the sight of him, everyone went on high alert, tense and on the brink of violence. Shizuo fought to remain calm. He didn't want to be the one to start this. That would be all he needed, with nearly all eyes on him, facing a crowd of people all itching for a fight.

"_You,_" the word was more of a snarl, coming from a tall boy with hunched shoulders. There was a small scar on his upper lip, barely healed over. He leaned over and grabbed a bat from someone else's hands, then started toward Shizuo immediately, brimming with hostile intent. "_Fuck! _What are you doing here, Heiwajima?"

Shizuo felt as if the boy's face was familiar, but no name came to mind. He felt his adrenaline spike alongside his anger.

The tall boy stalked toward him, followed by his group of friends.

"I get it now," the boy spat as he kept coming closer, his dark eyes fixed on Shizuo. "_You're_ the real threat. _You're _his plan."

Throughout all this, mutters of excitement were rising in volume, finally boiling over into shouts and yells.

With a violent shove, the boy pushed aside someone who was in his way. They retaliated immediately with a warlike cry and a swing of their arm. The rest of his friends had to turn away, breaking into fights with the groups around them. The air seemed to shatter from the sudden explosion of whoops and hollering coming from the crowd as they finally started what they had come here for. The violence spread like wildfire.

Shizuo stared at the chaos that erupted around him in utter amazement.

The entire field had exploded with movement and sound - tackling and shouts and wrestling on the ground and hollers and fighting and screams.

A broken glass bottle sailed overhead, refracting the sunlight, making a beautiful arc before smashing into the ground and splintering into pieces. People were smashing fists into faces, grabbing and throwing bodies around, screaming their heads off. It was madness.

_What the fuck are they doing?_

A sudden blow to his head made him stagger. A short boy with a baseball bat in his hands backed away, yelling: "Get out of here! This place is gonna be _ours_. It won't _ever_ belong to you!"

Shizuo felt the side of his face sting, felt blood trickling down his skin.

His temper blew out like a fuse.

.

When it was over, the shouts and war cries turned into soft, broken whimpers of pain. Shizuo stood alone in the midst of the bloody field, which had transformed into absolute carnage. Some of the delinquents were already dragging themselves away, seeing through a mask of blood, being supported by their friends. Most of the fighting had focused on him, once the delinquents had realized what a threat he had been.

It was a familiar scene, one Shizuo had seen time and time again. As the adrenaline faded away, the guilt and horror began to set in. He wondered if he was stuck in an endless loop, doomed to repeat his mistakes forever, doomed to see this scene for the rest of his life.

Well, one thing had changed. Shizuo stared at his hands, with its unbroken fingers. Other than a few scrapes, he had somehow gotten out of this nearly unscathed.

After that first, surprising blow to the head, he had simply picked up a nearby soccer goal post from a pile of abandoned gym equipment. His body had done the rest, acting outside of his control, swinging the metal bar and sending bodies flying.

It had been simple cleanup. No one had even gotten near him. Soon, nobody would ever be able to go near him.

He stood for a long time in the middle of that field, wondering what the repercussions of this fight would be. He had never lost his temper at such a large scale before. He must have broken thirty limbs, must have accumulated a lifetime worth of bad karma. There would be no hope of ever settling into a peaceful life, after this.

Anger bloomed inside him. He had trusted the person who had written to him, had trusted those neatly carved letters and teasing words. He had believed, just one moment, that if he came to the warehouse, he could really be free from all the gang violence.

He had been tricked.

He should have expected this. His stalker enjoyed seeing others suffer, enjoyed watching large-scale fights where Shizuo lost his temper and wrought destruction. He had played Shizuo like a fool, had led him right into a crowd of every single delinquent in the school. This was all a game to him, an entertaining show.

The warehouse seemed to beckon to him with its empty windows and its closed metal doors. Without knowing how Shizuo suddenly realized that they must be waiting inside. Even if he had lied about giving Shizuo a way to be free of the gangs, he still must have intended to meet Shizuo here. He moved without thinking, walking over to the entrance.

He pushed open the warehouse doors. _Whoever you are_, he thought grimly. _You better have a damn good explanation for this, or you're going to have hell to pay._

.

The doors opened with ease, letting in the bright afternoon sunlight.

The interior of the warehouse was surprisingly tall, making it seem open and airy. High steel beams crossed above his head. The floor was all bare, cracked concrete with weeds growing through it, except for one end which was a raised wooden platform. Sitting on the edge of that platform, one leg drawn up in front of him while the other dangled carelessly, was a dark-haired boy with maroon eyes and a scimitar grin.

Shizuo let the doors fall shut behind him.

"Congratulations on making it here," the boy said. His voice reminded Shizuo of smoke and shadows, the threat of a blade somewhere in the dark. He seemed to be around Shizuo's age, but he also seemed to fit in perfectly with the painted gang signs and splatters of blood or rust on the wall behind him. "I thought you might be the one to walk through those doors. My name is Izaya Orihara. It's nice to finally meet you."

At this, Shizuo strode forward. His footsteps echoed in the open space, and the boy watched him approach with no fear or concern or trepidation in his eyes. He wanted to ask _who are you? _But that question had already been answered, so he edited it out.

When they were face to face, Shizuo grabbed the boy's collar, and demanded: "Were you the one who sent all those people outside? What the _hell _was that?"

He cut short when he realized that the boy had the tip of a switchblade pressed against his throat. Up close, he realized that Izaya's irises were actually a dark red. His eyes seemed nearly black in the dim light. His features were surprisingly delicate, almost elegant in a way that had Shizuo's eyes catching on the rise of his cheekbones and the line of his jaw. Shizuo loosened his grip a little. It felt as if just touching that skin would leave bruises.

Distantly, he knew he should be angry right now, should be furious at the threat of the blade, at being tricked. But he kept getting distracted by the color of Izaya's eyes, and the relief that he had been right about him existing after all.

"One thing at a time," Izaya said, smiling up at him. "Those people outside came of their own free will. They won't come after you for revenge, and they won't tell a soul about where their injuries came from."

"How do you know that?" Shizuo demanded.

"They promised," Izaya said lightly, and suddenly there was a cruel edge to his smile. "And nobody breaks their promises to _me_."

Shizuo shivered and let go. The blade disappeared in Izaya's sleeve with a quiet _click._

"As for your second question," Izaya continued, "_That_ was a turf war, only with the rules modified a bit. First, multiple gangs were involved, all at once. Second, the victor would remain in possession of this area, unchallenged, for the rest of high school. That is, unless they abandon the warehouse, and don't visit it for a week. After that, it's free game."

Shizuo had assumed something similar, but he still wasn't satisfied with that explanation. "_Why? _What's so special about this place?"

Izaya gestured toward the walls of the warehouse, his hands somehow encompassing the entire building in his palms. "It's an abandoned building, you see. The police don't care about it because it technically belongs to the school. The school doesn't want to deal with it because it's too old and there are too many gang members here."

"Over the years, there have been more and more fights amongst rival gangs for the rights to this warehouse. It was beginning to attract too much attention. It makes much more sense to have a free-for-all with everyone, and then everyone agrees that the winner gets left alone to do whatever they want with this place. Wouldn't you agree?"

Shizuo honestly didn't care either way, but he couldn't help but stare at Izaya, at the dark of his hair falling over his delicate features, at the knowing gleam in his eyes.

"Don't tell me," Shizuo said. "You planned all of this."

He didn't need an answer. It was obvious in the way Izaya reacted as if he had been given a compliment instead of accused of starting a war.

Everything that had happened outside suddenly took on a new meaning. Shizuo drew in a deep breath, almost blown away by the magnitude of it all. The shattered limbs, all those cries of pain, that violence - it hadn't been senseless after all. It had been the price he had needed to pay, the trial he had needed to overcome.

Shizuo looked around, trying to mask his sudden sense of elation. This place, with its high ceilings and metal walls, its cracked floor, and its hollow interior, now belonged to him. He wouldn't have to wander the streets looking for a place where he wouldn't be bothered. He was going to be free of the senseless violence, the constant fighting. He was finally going to be left alone.

A thought made him turn back to Izaya. "Is this why you've been stalking me? So you could figure out how to use me?"

Izaya didn't even hesitate. He grinned at Shizuo as if mocking him for his self-important delusion. "What are you talking about? I just saw you fighting some delinquents once and thought you should be invited to their grand event."

Shizuo's blood chilled at the ease with which Izaya delivered the lie. He stared at Izaya's expression, looking for the tiniest hint of guilt or discomfort. He found none.

"I'd say you got pretty lucky, wouldn't you?" Izaya continued, unruffled by Shizuo's sudden glare. "If I hadn't happened across the scene of your crime, you never would have -"

Shizuo caught him off guard, pushing him flat on his back onto the wooden platform and pinning him down with one hand.

"You don't know me," Shizuo said, calm with certainty. A violent thrill ran through him at how easily he could hold Izaya down, like electricity running down his arm and making his fingers tingle and his palms burn, leaving behind a ringing, numb feeling in its wake. "And I don't know you. So I'll warn you just this once - _don't lie to me_."

He watched Izaya's face for fear, waited for it, but it never came.

After he felt that he had gotten his point across, Shizuo pulled back his arm. As Izaya sat up slowly, Shizuo asked: "What's in it for you? I still don't understand why you did this."

Izaya tilted his head slightly. For an instant, Shizuo wondered if he had made a wrong move, or made a mistake. There was a strange look in Izaya's eyes, eerie and calculating, as if he was planning some sort of revenge. At last, Izaya smiled.

"Don't worry," he said. "You'll find out in time."

.

The truth was, Izaya Orihara did it because it had been _easy_.

All it had taken was one simple push, and a little careful setup, and the entire thing had fallen into place like a row of dominoes. It had been _beautiful. _It was like creating a piece of art out of thin air with nothing more than a few spray-painted signs and a few notes passed to the right people. It was like composing a symphony on his first try. It was like playing chess with fifty other pawns while he held the queen. It was like being a god.

At first glance, the warehouse behind the school had been nothing special. Once, it had been used as a gym, but then new funding had come in and a new gym had been built. The warehouse was a little too far away, and was bordered by nothing but cracked concrete roads and trees. It was the perfect breeding ground for delinquent activity.

It was the perfect in-between place - no adults to monitor you, no rules or guidelines to restrict you. It kept out the rain, the wind, and the cold. It belonged to no one, and so it could be a place that even a child could own. For kids that had nothing, not even the desire to go home, that was a prize worth shedding blood over.

But Izaya had no desire to shed blood, and no desire to involve himself directly with something so tedious. The vast tide of humanity was best appreciated from a high altitude. Touching that current and getting swept along into the normal everyday activities and conversations had never appealed to him.

So, for the first few months, Izaya just watched it. He watched the silly fights over it, the turf wars fought by desperate and lonely children. He watched group after group trying to hold on to that warehouse, only to be driven out a few weeks later.

He learned the names of the gang leaders, their numbers, their habits. He learned about the things they did in that warehouse, the games and the betting, the dares and the orgies, the get-rich-quick schemes and the constant struggle for power. He learned about their silly arguments, their betrayals, their scheming, their constant fear of being driven out of the only place they could call their own.

He saw it and thought: _I could play this game and win without even trying._

But he didn't, at first. Instead, during the school day, he wandered around the edges of conversations and never joined any circles of groups, just watched it all from his own corner of space. When school ended, he stayed in the library for as long as he could, sometimes reading, sometimes not. And after the library closed, when there was nowhere else for him to go, he wandered the city streets until nightfall.

That was how he had discovered Shizuo Heiwajima.

.

Watching him, surrounded by broken bodies under a red-orange sky, Izaya was suddenly struck by a fit of inspiration, like a bolt of lightning.

_I can make this work, if I wanted to,_ he thought. _I can make this happen._

Izaya supposed that it had been a test of sorts - a test of his own capabilities. A test to see if he knew the humans around him as well as he thought he did. A test to see if he would enjoy meddling with human lives instead of just observing everyone from a distance. A test to see if he could put all of his accumulated observations and theories to actual use, to see if he could gain something of real value, out in the real world instead of inside his head.

And the answer had been, across the board, a resounding _yes_.

Well, actually, Izaya hadn't expected it to work out _that_ well. To be honest, up until the very last moment, Izaya hadn't even been sure that Shizuo Heiwajima would come. That had been the only part of the whole plan that Izaya couldn't predict. Seeing that fight happen, seeing everything come together so perfectly, had easily been the best moment of Izaya's life up till now.

Izaya was still riding on that ridiculous high a week later, almost giddy with the realization that everything had worked out exactly how he wanted it - _everything_. His limbs felt so light that he thought he could fly. He couldn't stop smiling to himself, which freaked out all of his classmates. His head was in the clouds. For once, he barely paid attention to any of the teacher's droning lectures or his classmates' chattering gossip. He still remembered the jolt of electricity that ran through him when Shizuo had casually pushed him down. He could still taste the ozone in the roof of his mouth, from that crackling bolt of sensation.

The result of all of his machinations was a resounding victory, and the spoils of said victory were these: the warehouse behind the school, and Shizuo Heiwajima.

The warehouse was indisputably his. Shizuo Heiwajima was still a mystery. But Izaya was confident he could use one to capture the other.

After all, the two were inextricably linked. Shizuo's mere presence would be enough to deter most people from trying to come back and reclaim the warehouse; and the warehouse would be able to provide something that Shizuo wanted desperately - a place to be left alone.

.

And so, a legend was born in the things the students gossiped about in the hallways, amongst the delinquents who seethed with impotent rage at having their prize stolen away from them by a stranger. The legend's name was Shizuo Heiwajima, who had single-handedly defeated fifty delinquents in the field behind the school, who had shown up out of the blue like a descending god and had claimed the warehouse as his own.

In other circles, in places where money and cards and drugs traded hands in shadowed, smoky rooms, amongst people who wore scars and tattoos openly on their faces and skin, a different rumor spread.

That rumor's name was Izaya Orihara, who had come out of nowhere, with no connections, no shady background, and no prior record of lawbreaking.

Izaya Orihara, who had some strange kind of hold over every single gang leader in the school, and had managed to make them all agree to cede the rights of the warehouse to whoever won their free-for-all battle royale.

Izaya Orihara, who had somehow convinced Shizuo Heiwajima to fight on his behalf, and had taken over the warehouse, and had tricked them all.


	3. Futility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(But from that point on, everything had been inevitable. Shizuo would have liked to believe that he had a choice, that he could have stopped himself. But the truth was, he couldn’t have.)_

When he was younger, Shizuo wanted to be a detective. He had seen movies with detectives in them - long black trench coats, cool hats, rough voices from smoking cigarettes. He thought they were cool, in the same way that Kasuka thought superheroes were cool. In a way, Shizuo still secretly wondered if he would be a good detective, if he could do anything besides lose his temper and wreak havoc wherever he went.

So, when presented with the mystery that was Izaya Orihara, Shizuo decided to do some investigating.

First and foremost, he had to figure out whether Izaya was a genius or simply crazy. Usually, one would be able to tell. Shizuo suspected that Izaya was both, but he figured a second opinion would help. He had never heard of someone actually _planning _a turf war before, let alone one for multiple different gangs. He doubted if Izaya even had the ability to hold others to their promises of leaving him alone. But - _nobody breaks their promises to me_ -

Shizuo started with his classmates. He wasn't completely socially inept. He could talk, once the other party had calmed down from their initial panic, and had realized that he wasn't there to pick a fight.

The reactions he got ranged from pleased surprise to bitter resentment to wary indifference.

What he found out was this: Izaya Orihara was a student in class 1-B - the same year, different class. He had no close friends, although he had been in the same club as Shinra Kishitani in middle school. He had no enemies, although some boys in his class seemed to be terrified of him. He was completely unattached to the drama of ordinary high school life, and yet everyone seemed to know his name. The girls thought he was a little weird, being a loner and all, but had a handsome face. The boys thought he was a little creepy, a little unfriendly, but could never point to a reason why. He got reasonably good grades but never seemed to study. He rarely fell asleep in class, but rarely seemed to be paying attention either. In short, no one really knew who he was, but they all knew to stay away from him.

"Did he do something to piss you off?" Ueyama asked, looking a little pale, once he had finished blurting out everything he knew. Shizuo supposed that was a point in his favor, for becoming a detective. He had the intimidation factor down without even having to do anything.

"No," Shizuo said, but that didn't seem to reassure Ueyama one bit.

"Are you going to beat him up?"

"Probably not," Shizuo answered honestly. _Depends on if he was lying to me or not._

From the look on Ueyama's face, though, Izaya was as good as dead.

.

By far, the most interesting thing he had found out so far was this - Shinra had lied to him.

_So much for being a detective_, Shizuo thought wryly. _I couldn't even tell when my only friend was lying to me._

So, Izaya Orihara and Shinra Kishitani were friends. This entire time, Shizuo had been wondering how Izaya had managed to steal into his seat, carve notes into his desk, and not be noticed. The truth was, Izaya had just dropped by to chat with his middle school friend. There had been no sneaking around at all. Shizuo could see it his head - Izaya swinging his legs, grinning at Shinra without a care in the world, as he defaced the property of one of the most dangerous kids in school.

_He must be crazy_, Shizuo decided. Then, _I wonder why that doesn't change anything._

The classroom was nearly empty at the end of the day, with students rushing to get home before the sky full of dark clouds made good on its threat to start pouring rain. Winter had truly melted into spring, and the rains were finally starting to die down.

Before Shinra could leave, Shizuo stopped him.

"Shinra," he asked. He wasn't sure how to feel. How did one confront a friend for lying to you? "Why didn't you tell me?"

Shizuo tried to strip out any semblance of a threat in his voice, but it was honestly a futile attempt, with that kind of question.

Shinra blinked owlishly, as if looking more like an animal would make him seem more innocent. It did. Then, he gave Shizuo an apologetic smile. "Ah, yeah, about lying to you...Izaya threatened me with expulsion if I ratted him out, so I couldn't really say anything."

_What the fuck?!?_

Some of his shock must have shown on Shizuo's face because Shinra immediately added: "Well, he asked me politely first."

Shizuo decided to ignore that for now. "So," he said, just to confirm one last time, to make sure that he had _really_ been lied to, by _Shinra_ of all people. "You knew that he was the one I was asking about, earlier, the one with the red eyes."

Shinra looked up a little but decided not to lie again. He knew better than that. "Yeah."

A bubble of frustration burst inside of Shizuo. _Why did I have to go to so much trouble to go to the warehouse then?_

He tried to reevaluate his understanding of Izaya. What kind of student casually threatened a friend with expulsion? What kind of _person _did that?

"You've known Izaya for a long time," he said to Shinra. It felt strange to say that, strange to realize that Izaya had a normal life just like everyone else, with family and friends. "What's he like?"

Shinra's answer didn't take long. "Izaya Orihara loves humans, especially observing them," he said. After a moment, Shinra added: "I think he can be just as dangerous as you, sometimes."

"What do you mean?"

"People around him tend to get hurt," Shinra said, and then paused once he realized what he had just said. "It's not that he does it on purpose. It's just that they tend to get dragged in over their head. There was a kid called Nakura, in middle school. He got caught up in one of Izaya's schemes, and - well, he ended up having to transfer to a different school afterwards."

Shizuo took a moment to digest this. _That _sounded like a reason to stay as far away from Izaya as he could. But instead of feeling fear, he was just curious. He kept looking for reasons to turn down the warehouse deal, but as soon as he found them, he kept dismissing them.

_Is that what's going to happen to me? _He wondered. _Am I getting dragged in over my head?_

In the end, he was going to agree to the warehouse deal anyway. All of this investigating had been pointless after all. So much for being a detective, when the things he found out didn't change the end result one bit. No new conclusions reached, only a renewed sense of the danger.

He had a sudden image of Izaya watching over the school with his red eyes and knowing smile, seeing people move around like pieces on a chessboard. Izaya had known his answer before the question had even been asked. Was this what it felt like, to get caught up in one of his schemes? He had been jerked around like a puppet on a string. Was that all Izaya saw him as? Was that how he saw everyone? As phenomenon to be observed?

_Well, _he thought, staring out into the dark grey skies outside of the window, and seeing Izaya's eyes looking back at him with avid interest, and no fear at all. _At least he thinks I'm human._

.

By the time Shizuo made it to the warehouse, the clouds had broken open. The rain came down from the sky in steady sheets. There was a slight taste of electricity in the air, sharp and sweet. The raindrops pounded insistently against the warehouse roof. Shizuo hesitated before going in, even as he shook the water out of his hair, felt the cold soaking into the collar of his uniform. He felt strangely jittery.

The doors pushed open.

The rain sounded more distant inside, far away and closed off. Shizuo crossed the open space, listening to the metallic ring of water running off of the roof of the warehouse. The air outside was still a little cold. Inside, however, the air seemed compressed as if the rain had put a blanket over the entire building. Shizuo let out a silent breath.

_Maybe he didn't come here today_, he thought. _After all, it's raining pretty hard outside._

It seemed as if only he had been acknowledged as the victor of that fight, and therefore the one-week rule only applied to him. Izaya seemed to be free to float in and out of the warehouse as he pleased, simply by virtue of being the one who had organized it all. Whatever Izaya's plan had been, in the end, the real winner had been him. Even if Shizuo had lost, Izaya still would have gotten unlimited access to the warehouse.

"You've been asking about me."

For an instant, Shizuo wondered if Izaya had just appeared out of thin air. The voice came from behind him, as if just the thought of Izaya had summoned him.

Slowly, Shizuo turned and looked up. The windows of the warehouse were all several feet up off the ground, too high to see through. There, he was met with the sight of Izaya Orihara, nestled in the alcove of a window, silhouetted by the eerie light coming from outside.

He had his hands settled against the ledge of the window, with his legs over the edge. The slight smile on his face was familiar, but Shizuo suddenly felt a chill. Izaya looked exactly as he'd imagined, watching over the world with that same expression of distant, amused interest.

Shizuo met Izaya's eyes, held them, and didn't back down. "I have," he replied.

Between one breath and the next, adrenaline had filled his veins, as if he expected a fight to break out at that very moment. Sitting there, balanced precariously against the window ledge, Izaya smiled down at him with sharp-edged satisfaction.

"Did you find anything interesting?"

"I talked to Shinra," Shizuo said, in order to avoid saying, _yes, but now I have more questions than answers. _The only real answers he had gotten had come from Shinra, who had warned him that Izaya could be dangerous. And yet, here he was anyway.

Izaya's smile widened in genuine pleasure. He jumped down from the ledge.

"Shinra Kishitani," he said, and suddenly Shizuo believed completely that they had known each other for a long time, that they were close enough to be friends. All of the danger in Izaya's voice seemed to melt away at the mention of Shinra.

"You two are in the same class, right? And you sit right behind him." Izaya laughed. "He told me once about how you got so angry at the teacher that you threw a chair through a window. He said he had to sit next to a drafty hole in the wall for a week before they patched it up."

Shizuo tensed as Izaya kept coming closer, testing the limits of his comfort zone.

"Have you heard Shinra's theory about you? About why you're so strong?" Izaya moved closer. Shizuo became painfully aware of every single movement, his skin prickling with tension, his blood heating with the anticipation of danger.

"I have," Shizuo answered. "He came to visit me in the hospital once, and he asked to dissect me. I ended up breaking his arm."

"That's Shinra for you," Izaya smiled, but it was the ironic kind of smile that put Shizuo on edge. He was so close now that they were face to face, within touching distance.

Izaya reached out with one hand, and Shizuo froze as if every single one of his joints had been locked up. A strange sensation went through him, as if he had given Izaya a little electricity the last time they had touched, and now Izaya was returning it.

Izaya's hand came away wet from the rain in Shizuo's hair.

"He lacks a certain sense of self-preservation that all the other kids do," Izaya turned and walked past Shizuo as if nothing had happened. "Or, to put it another way, he's just so uninterested that he simply doesn't pay attention to the dangers around him. You, for instance."

Shizuo watched the loose curl of Izaya's fingers at his sides. All of the shuddering adrenaline in his blood had converted instantly to heat, all from the slightest brush of fingers against his rain-soaked hair. Shizuo wondered if his reaction would have been any different had there been a knife instead.

He didn't know. He wanted to ask what that was all about, wanted to ask why Izaya dared to do such a thing, to _him _of all people. But he had the feeling that it wouldn't sound like a proper threat, not when his breath was so shallow and his heart still pounding uncomfortably in his chest. And the conversation had moved on. There was no way he could ask about it now.

"What do you mean? I'm not dangerous," he sounded just like he always did, harsh and angry, even with his shallow breath. "At least, not to Shinra. Not unless he tries to dissect me again."

Izaya looked at Shizuo with open amusement in his eyes, and a barely hidden smile and a barely hidden threat, as if saying, _Are you? And if _I _cut you apart, would I find a monster or a human?_

.

Here was the thing: Shizuo was not an innocent person.

He knew what sex was. No high schooler _didn't. _He had figured that his type was the wide-eyed innocent type, with gentle fingers and a sweet smile. Normal. Kind and peaceful, just the opposite of himself, but everything that he wanted to be. He still wasn't sure why he had such a strong reaction to Izaya - to the danger in his smile and the promise of violence in his eyes. Izaya was the opposite of what he wanted to become - someone so entrenched in gangs and violence that it had become a part of him.

But he knew what this was. He knew why he had ignored every warning and every shred of common sense. He was interested in Izaya. He had been captivated by the clever scheme, that lilting voice, that teasing smile. He wanted to know more about the boy in the warehouse. He wanted to know everything about him.

There was a word for this, he knew. Infatuation. Or obsession, or maybe just love at first sight, but Shizuo doubted if it was love. He barely even knew the other boy. There were the beginnings of it, maybe, and that scared him. He was not exactly sure how love worked, but he was pretty sure he was not supposed to fall in love with the first person to show the slightest hint of interest in him. He was pretty sure that made him creepy and pathetic.

Here was another thing: Shizuo was not an idiot.

Another person would have looked at Izaya's delicate features, his charismatic smile, and would have hoped: _Maybe I can have him. If he did this much for me, then maybe I have a chance._

But Shizuo was not an idiot, and so he knew that this hope was a futile one. Izaya Orihara was a mystery, to be sure. He would probably never find out what Izaya wanted with the warehouse in the first place. That dark smile was meant to hide secrets.

But he couldn't help but be drawn in anyway.

And here was the last thing, the most important thing about Shizuo Heiwajima, the reason why he was more monster than human:

At the end of it all, despite all of his other characteristics and personality traits and desires and efforts, in the end, Shizuo simply couldn't stop himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of Part 1


	4. Reprieve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(It wasn’t all that bad, in the beginning. Shizuo had to remember that. For a while, at least, they were both happy.)_

Shizuo's life entered a period of blissful peace.

He didn't get into any fights. He didn't bump into any ill-mannered strangers. Perhaps for the first time since middle school, he did not lose his temper for an entire week. His wounds all healed, and for once, there was no constant background sensation of pain thrumming through his body. His life had gone from violent and chaotic to calm and peaceful.

Izaya's deal with the other gangs - whatever that had been - held true. Gang members no longer bothered him on the streets. They no longer came up to him with scowling faces and jeering words. In fact, they seemed to disappear completely from his sight. Before, his reputation would draw delinquents to him like moths to a flame. Now, they seemed to fear him even more than they had before, even though he hadn't changed a thing. He could walk about wherever he pleased, free of unexpected violence.

And for that, Shizuo realized, he was more than happy to forgive Izaya for whatever trick he had pulled in getting Shizuo into that massive brawl. In fact, he was fucking _grateful _for it.

But Shizuo stayed silent, and tried not to give himself away, because he was dead certain that if Izaya even picked up on the tiniest hint of that gratefulness, Shizuo was going to end up paying out every last drop of it.

.

"I need you to do something," Izaya said.

Shizuo looked up from his seat in the warehouse, where he had been studying quietly in a patch of warm sunlight, and thought _oh, this can't be good._

"What is it?" he asked.

Distantly, he was horrified at the mild tone of his voice. It basically guaranteed a _yes _as an answer to anything that Izaya asked, because right now, Shizuo felt as if he would agree to anything that Izaya wanted. His mood was _that _good right now.

Shizuo's suspicion deepened as Izaya pulled out his cell phone.

"What are you doing?" Shizuo asked, and Izaya seemed to be _delighted _by the open apprehension on his face.

"I need to take a video of you saying ‘Hayato'," Izaya said, flipping his phone open to expose the small camera lens at the top. The motion was practiced, and careless, as if he had done it a thousand times before. He didn't even need to look at the screen in order to change it into a recording mode.

Shizuo looked from Izaya's fingers to his face, and found Izaya smirking at him as if he knew exactly what Shizuo was about to ask. The camera light was blinking red - it was already recording.

"Who's Hayato?"

With another practiced motion, Izaya flipped the phone shut, having gotten his recording. Shizuo supposed that tone hadn't mattered much to him. He wondered what Izaya needed that for.

"He's the really tall kid," Izaya answered him, approximated the height with his hands. "You met him during the warehouse brawl. He's probably the only kid in the school taller than you, only he always hunches over to make it less obvious."

At the last statement, the memory returned. The tall boy with a scar on his lip, who had a slight hunch to his shoulders, who had snarled fury at Shizuo at first sight, and had unintentionally started the whole brawl.

"Oh, _him_," Shizuo said stiffly, the memory spoiling his good mood a little bit. "He's the guy that attacked me as soon as he saw me. I wonder what his deal was."

"You don't know?" Izaya asked, surprised. "I thought you were the one who started it."

"Started _what_?"

As it turned out, sometime back in the first term, Hayato had started dating Minami, the student council treasurer in Shizuo's class. Apparently, it had been a pretty big scandal, since he was well known as a low-class good-for-nothing delinquent, and she was, well, the treasurer of the student council. Basically, they had been forced to hide their relationship for a good while, with the help of some close friends, and most of Hayato's gang. One of the only ways they could meet up was by meeting up in the Minami's classroom after school ended, whenever she was on cleaning duty, and they would spend time together that way.

Almost everybody in the school knew to stay away from that classroom, especially since the members of Hayato's gang were apparently a rather sentimental lot, and viciously protected any scrap of time Hayato could spend together with his girl.

That is, except for a certain loner in school that didn't really talk to anyone except for Shinra. And Shinra, Izaya supposed, never bothered to mention it.

"Oh, _shit_," Shizuo breathed. He remembered it now.

During the first school term, when he had still been trying to figure out what places in school were safe, and how long he could stay alone and undisturbed, he had tried lingering in the classroom for as long as he could. There had been a particularly irritating student, back then, who just barged into the room and demanded that Shizuo leave. When Shizuo refused, the kid had grabbed his arm, reaggravating one of Shizuo's old injuries, and -

"Mhm," Izaya said, clearly enjoying the sight of guilt and realization play across Shizuo's features.

"I didn't know," Shizuo said, a little weakly. He gave Izaya a warning look. This _wasn't _funny. No wonder all the girls in class were so cold to him. They were all Minami's friends.

"It's not really your fault," Izaya laughed. "He got what was coming to him. After all, everyone knows not to pick a fight with you."

Shizuo couldn't help it. He laughed out loud. The entire thing had become too ridiculous that it was difficult _not_ to laugh.

For a moment, they just grinned at each other, as if laughing at some inside joke.

It was strange. A month ago, he would have cringed from hearing the same words. He would have taken the wrong way, as a condemnation rather than praise, or as a subtly worded taunt meant to start a fight him after all.

Izaya turned away to go back to his corner of the warehouse, and Shizuo went back to his studying. But for a long time afterward, Shizuo couldn't stop thinking about that smile.

.

The warehouse began to fill with little things that Izaya had rescued from the school hallways and street curbs. Most were chairs that came in all shapes and sizes - plastic and wooden desks like the ones that students sat in all day, cushioned rolling chairs that the teachers threw out because they had gotten too old, a random piano bench from the music rooms with a bad leg. They were all horribly mismatched but seemed to fit into the warehouse perfectly.

"What do you need all these chairs for?" Shizuo couldn't help but ask incredulously, once he had caught Izaya dragging in a metal folding chair into the mix.

"I'm fulfilling my childhood dream of having a room filled with chairs," Izaya told him solemnly, and Shizuo surprised them both by laughing.

.

Shizuo began to settle into a routine.

School started at 8:30 in the morning, so he usually had to be up by 8 in order to get any decent food in him before class started. He lived at a walking distance from school, and never really had an issue with being late. Mornings used to be his favorite time of day, since the other delinquents were usually too sleep-deprived and groggy to start any real trouble, and he was almost never bothered on his way to school.

Classes themselves alternated between boring and stressful. Most of them blurred together, more an exercise in keeping calm, keeping his head down, and staying out of trouble than an exercise in learning. Shizuo _tried_ to study, mostly because he didn't like the stress of seeing a low score on an exam, but also because he _really _didn't like the stress of bringing bad grades back home to his parents. If he did well in school, at least none of the teachers would bother him, and the less people that bothered him, the better.

After classes ended at 3 in the afternoon, however, the rest of the day would be his to spend however he liked. He would be free.

It used to be that Shizuo would spend the rest of the daylight hours wandering around the city, but now he turned away from the school gates and toward the warehouse.

He would take the dirt path that led through the trees. Once the rainy season had passed, the air here turned fresh and clean, without the stink of perfume or cigarettes, without the ceaseless chatter of junior high students and the annoying clink of metal chairs against the floor. Inevitably, Shizuo would feel the stress of the day drain out of him, just from a simple two-minute walk, alone and undisturbed.

And when he reached the warehouse doors, without fail, Shizuo would feel a shiver of anticipation as he pushed them open.

Part of it was that he still felt amazed by the fact that this warehouse really _did _seem to belong to him. Nobody ever came to contest that claim.

As far as he could tell, it really was just an ordinary warehouse. It was fifty paces long and twenty paces across, with a stage at one end that could be folded out with the appropriate equipment. The walls were spray painted in places where human hands could reach, but the paint was faded and cracking now, and most of the words were completely illegible.

Steel beams rose up at certain intervals from the cracked ground all the way up to the ceiling, supporting the metal-sheeted roof, where skylights and windows let in nearly all of the sunlight. There was only one steel beam that leaned at a strange angle, at the end of the warehouse where the wooden platform was, running at a steep angle up to the ceiling and looking as if it had fallen over. But the top was welded to the roof, and the bottom also seemed to be slanted at that angle deliberately, so Shizuo supposed it must serve some purpose.

There was a small section, eight paces across, where the stage led down via a two-step staircase into a secluded alcove, where Izaya had put all of his various chairs. Izaya had put other things there as well - his books, his bags, a bunch of blankets taken from various places, a small battery-powered lamp, and a smattering of cushions that had come with the couch, and of course, the couch itself, green and worn, but comfortably nestled against the stage. Its dimensions had been just right, something Shizuo was sure that Izaya had known beforehand.

The leaning steel beam went right across this alcove, which had the effect of splitting out this section from the rest of the building. By some unspoken agreement, this was Izaya's part of the warehouse.

Most days, when Shizuo came to the warehouse after school, Izaya would already be there, settled in one of his chairs, or on the couch. Somehow, he always got to the warehouse before Shizuo did, and he never seemed to leave before nightfall, when Shizuo left.

Shizuo didn't ask about it - it was none of his business, but he had the impression that Izaya had wanted to avoid going home, and had wanted a place to be left alone, just as much as he himself had.

They didn't always talk.

Some days, after their initial greetings, Izaya would go back to his book or his cellphone, and Shizuo would pull out his own homework and then they just occupied the same space, silently and peacefully, letting time pass them by.

At first, Shizuo was certain that Izaya would be exactly the personality that he hated the most - noisy and argumentative, the kind that just _had _to make their presence known wherever they were, until the merest hint of their presence would grate on Shizuo's skin.

It turned out, however, that Izaya could be _quiet_.

In fact, Izaya could remain silent for long stretches of time, completely absorbed in his work, ignoring everything around him. He didn't play loud music, didn't make any sudden movements, and didn't seem afraid of being around Shizuo. He just sat, settled into whatever chair he had pulled in from outside, legs sometimes propped up on another chair, or against the wall, reading from a stack of books next to him. Sometimes, he was so concentrated on his work that it helped Shizuo focus on his work too. When that happened, Shizuo sometimes barely registered Izaya's presence at all.

It was unnerving when that happened. When they first met, Shizuo had been certain that he would never be able to relax with Izaya in the same room. He had just never been so aware of another human being before - where they were, any of their sudden movements, or any sudden noises. Shizuo wasn't sure why. It wasn't like Izaya was dangerous to him. Even though Shizuo was aware of the threat of a switchblade in Izaya's pocket, Shizuo had never sensed even the slightest hint of hostility. Instead, all he could sense was a deep calm, like the surface of a pool with unfathomable depths, until even shifts in the earth's movements would barely result in a ripple.

Shizuo wished he could achieve that level of focus, that kind of peaceful tranquility. He knew he could never have it, but he couldn't help wanting it all the same. 

So he slowly got more and more used to having Izaya around, like a shadow in the background, accepting his presence rather than getting irritated by it. And whenever he felt restless or jittery or unfocused, Shizuo would steal glances at Izaya every now and then, and be inexplicably reassured by the quiet way Izaya flipped the pages, and the graceful lines of relaxation on his body.


	5. Signs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(But even then, that happiness hadn’t been perfect. It hadn’t been peaceful. Even from the very beginning, there had been signs.)_

Shizuo was in an awful mood.

There wasn't any particular reason why. If he had to, he could come up with any random reason: the sky was grey. Classes had been unbearable. His bones hurt. He hated tests. His life was a mess. He had woken up with a strange pain in his fingers, sharp and insistent, as if he had injured them somehow in the night. The pain did not fade as he went about his day.

Something seemed to ache inside his chest. A thoughtless comment, an offhand word, not even directed at him. Just the word _monster_, thrown out in a conversation, and the way the room had suddenly quieted afterward. They hadn't even been talking about him. They had been talking about some movie that had just come out. But the buzz of conversation had just so happened to fall into a lull during that very moment, and suddenly everyone in the classroom had been looking at anything but him. The tension had only been broken by Shinra's yawn, completely unconcerned with what had just happened.

This was why he could never just _keep calm_, like his parents wanted him to. This was exactly why he couldn't just _be normal_, like his teachers wished he would be. Nobody else had to deal with constant pain, not like this, just because they had been _stupid _and had injured themselves by accident while sleeping. Nobody else was treated like a time bomb, just about to explode and take out half the building with it. Nobody else had to deal with the fact that when others looked at them, they saw a _monster_ \- as if his face and hair and four limbs and two hands didn't matter, his language and mind and skills didn't matter, and all they saw was the unnatural density of his bones and the unnatural strength of his muscles.

He wanted to be alone. He wanted to go home. He wanted to just lie down on his bed, shut out the world, try to sleep the rest of the day away.

But Kasuka was home, and Shizuo was terrified of the day when he went home and saw the word _monster _reflected in Kasuka's eyes too, was terrified that going home in this mood would make Kasuka freeze over like a statue, and do more damage than he already had.

So at the end of the day, he slung his bag over his shoulder, and more by habit than by choice, made his way toward the warehouse. 

.

The walk to the warehouse did a little to calm him down. And this time, when Shizuo pushed open the warehouse doors, he felt a little shiver of hope that said - _maybe I can cheer up here. Maybe I can relax here, and forget how shitty class was today._

As soon as he saw what was inside, Shizuo froze.

Usually the first thing he saw when he entered the warehouse was the back wall, flat and grey, with faded spray-painted signs.

Today, however, on that flag grey wall, there was a massive red symbol, spray painted over other layers of images and words and signs.

It looked new, the paint was fresh and the edges were sharp. It looked like it was carved into the wall, bleeding down out of a vibrant wound. It didn't look like a character, but it also looked too simple to be an image. The top part looked like the character for 'mountain', only with the middle line deformed and stretching further down in a bloody trail.

Just the sight of it evoked shock and anger, like someone barging into his personal space and spitting at him, or trampling over his things, or defacing his desk, only there was nothing to retaliate against and no one there to blame.

The was the last straw, the grand finale to an already shitty day. Shizuo lost his temper.

"What the _fuck?_" he yelled, and flung his backpack somewhere, just because it felt good to throw something, and it had been the closest thing. It crashed into a side wall and burst, spilling its contents - textbooks and notebooks and a shattered pencil case - out onto the floor.

Then, because he couldn't hold still, and couldn't look at that spray-painted sign without getting angry, Shizuo grabbed something nearby and stalked towards the far end of the warehouse. He wasn't sure what he was planning to do. Attack the wall? Punch the red paint? Honestly, during these times, his brain just shut down, and all he could feel was an itch in his palms that demanded something to tear apart, and someone to destroy.

He had forgotten that his fingers were still injured, and curling them in an effort to grab something _hurt_. The pain nearly unhinged him, going up his arm and right through his skull, and making him let go. Shizuo staggered to a stop just in front of the wooden stage, having reached his destination through sheer will. Then, having nothing else to distract him, and faced with his utter foolishness, Shizuo cursed in pain and curled around his right hand, feeling stupid and angry and ashamed.

He was so wrapped up in his pain that he didn't notice until too late that Izaya had reached him, and had come within touching distance to ask: "Shizuo, are you okay?" in a tone that sounded both surprised and concerned.

Shizuo flinched away from him, a new horror overwhelming him. "_Fuck! _Get away from me, Izaya!" _Fuck! _He had forgotten that _Izaya _was here. How could he forget that? He hadn't even _thought _about the day when Izaya would look at him as if he were a monster, hadn't even begun to imagine how much _that _would hurt. He wasn't ready for this. He wasn't ready for Izaya to see who he really was, not yet. He had been hoping to hide it, for just a while longer.

Izaya, the idiot, came _closer_.

"What's going on?" he asked again, and Shizuo was sure of it now - Izaya _wasn't _afraid, wasn't even _pretending _not to be afraid, even though he knew _perfectly well _what Shizuo was capable of when he was angry, even though he had seen it with his own eyes. "Your hand - is there - did something -"

Shizuo ignored him. The pain was whirling around in his head, there was an itch of restless destruction in his blood. He shook his head as if trying to warn Izaya to shut up, to get away, and finally in order to sate the anger inside him, he drove his left fist through the stage, shattering the first two planks and going into the empty space below.

There was a loud _crack_ as the wooden planks split and his fist created a hole the size of someone's head. Splinters flew up into the air and away, and there was a groan and creak of heavy wood falling down a bit and clattering against the ground, rattling against the concrete.

There was a long moment of silence.

"I see," Izaya said.

.

It was as if his anger was a balloon that had been swelling up with heat from the fires of the earth, and Izaya's comment was a needle that had popped it completely.

Shizuo stared at Izaya in utter disbelief, fought down a mad urge to laugh, and inexplicably calmed down.

"What?" he said, with a sharp edge in his voice, to let Izaya know that he was still in danger, that he was being ridiculous. To make a joke _now _of all times?

Izaya leaned his hip against the wooden stage, completely unconcerned with the new hole in it. He regarded Shizuo in a way that suddenly reminded him of Shinra, all reckless curiosity and a hint of fascination.

_He _was the one in danger, but Shizuo was the one breathing hard, both from the exertion of suddenly getting angry, and from the sudden shock of _no longer being angry_.

"Give me your hand," Izaya commanded.

Shizuo obeyed, a little instinctively, even as the effort of straightening his fingers made a jolt of pain go up his arm. He looked at Izaya, wondering what was going on.

Izaya was doing that thing again - looking both surprised and fascinated, as if he had found something new to figure out, some new mystery to solve.

"I thought you would give me your other hand," Izaya explained.

Then, before Shizuo could pull his hand back and switch, Izaya took it, palms up, inspecting it. His touch made Shizuo freeze, made him abort any motion he had been about to make. He could still feel the residual urge to destroy something in his palms, as if the heat hadn't completely dissipated yet even though the source of it had. He could hurt Izaya with just a twitch of movement, and the mere possibility had Shizuo terrified.

"Relax," Izaya said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Shizuo would have laughed, if he wasn't so busy trying to remain absolutely still. He shouldn't have been able to feel this, but he could - Izaya's skin was cool against his, where only his fingertips touched Shizuo's wrist, and his palm touched the back of Shizuo's hand. Izaya wasn't asking any questions, or probing for signs of a bruise or a break. He was just holding Shizuo's hand in his palm. A strange shiver went through Shizuo, just like the agony that had been there before. Belatedly, he realized that the pain was gone.

"You might have a pinched nerve in your fingers, that's all," Izaya said. "Just relax, and don't punch anything for a while, and you should be fine."

It didn't make any sense. Why was Izaya being so _calm _about all of this? Shizuo had literally exploded in a rage as soon as he had entered the warehouse. He had destroyed a freaking _stage_, right in front of Izaya. Splinters could have gotten in his eyes. A little to the right and it would be Izaya's _bones _breaking instead of the wooden planks.

"Okay," Shizuo said, instead of asking any of that. He pulled back his hand and, because he wasn't thinking, because he was too preoccupied with wondering why Izaya was doing this, Shizuo curled his fingers into a fist.

The pain came back, excruciating, reminding him that he had a reason to destroy everything around him, reminding him that he wasn't as in control of himself as he thought.

"_Shit_," Shizuo hissed, and jerked his hand away, only to have Izaya catch it before he could bring his hand any higher than his shoulder.

Izaya was stronger than he looked. Shizuo's hand actually stopped. As soon as he felt Izaya's touch, _again_, Shizuo froze and became very, _very _careful.

"Here," Izaya said, and slid his fingers in between Shizuo's. He made Shizuo lower his hand. At first, for a crazy moment, Shizuo thought that this was a romantic gesture, and went dizzy with terror. Then, he realized that Izaya was doing it to prevent him from curling his hands into a fist again. If he did that, he might accidentally crush all the bones in Izaya's hand like matchsticks, and so Shizuo kept his hand very still, and very relaxed.

Izaya smiled as he saw Shizuo understand. "Better?" he asked.

Shizuo nodded. The pain was gone again, completely, as if it had never even existed.

"Yes," he said, and then wondered why the word tasted like a lie.

.

"Come here," Izaya said, and led Shizuo to his part of the warehouse, where Shizuo had to duck under the leaning steel beam in order to get in. They were still holding hands, or Izaya was still using his fingers as a hostage to keep Shizuo from doing anything stupid, or - or whatever was going on.

Shizuo had never really been to this part of the warehouse before. He usually kept to himself, in the open space on the opposite side, or on the stage. He would have felt like intruding, before, but now he was being invited in.

Izaya was oddly gentle with Shizuo's hand, never tugging it or pulling at it. Instead, he just guided Shizuo over to the couch and made him sit down, and then sat down next to him.

"Now give me your other hand," he said, and Shizuo wondered if this was how the rest of his day was going to go - with Izaya giving him orders left and right, and Shizuo obeying each time.

He was making a habit of this, Shizuo realized ruefully. So much for trying to keep his gratefulness hidden. Izaya had him wrapped around his little finger anyway.

"Wow," Izaya said dryly, inspecting Shizuo's other hand and finding no injuries, not even scrapes. "Your knuckles aren't even calloused from all that. It's like your skin is made of something different entirely."

Shizuo would have frozen, if he wasn't already trying to keep still. Despite it all, despite everything that had happened, he braced for Izaya to recoil.

Instead, Izaya just looked at him expectantly and said: "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

Shizuo told him everything. The shitty day. The constant pain from all the fights he had been in. Waking up to a flare of pain in his fingers that only worsened throughout the day. Belatedly, Shizuo realized that it was because he had been flexing his fingers constantly, testing that pain to see if it was still there, instead of relaxing and letting it heal.

And then, the symbol that defaced the warehouse walls.

"Did you do that?" he asked Izaya. God, it would be so stupid if _Izaya _had been the one that did it.

"No," Izaya replied. "Someone must have come in last night, after I left."

"I see," Shizuo said, getting angry again at the thought of someone coming here late at night to do whatever they wanted didn't sit well with him. But Izaya's fingers were in between his, and so he could not afford to get angry, not right now. He could feel them like thin metal stakes driving painlessly into his skin, pinning his hand down against the couch so that he couldn't move. He wasn't sure he _wanted _to move.

"Don't worry about it," Izaya said, smiling at him. "It's probably just some delinquents who were unhappy with the outcome of the warehouse fight."

"Are you sure?" Shizuo asked. "Doesn't it break the rules of the turf war that you set down? The winner was supposed to be left alone, and this doesn't seem like 'being left alone' to me."

There was a pause. Izaya looked surprised - there was that look _again_, as if he had not expected something out of Shizuo.

"I didn't think of that," he said, and then grinned suddenly.

"Then who do you think it is?"

"I have no idea. Now that I think about it, it _can't _be one of the people you fought. It must have been someone else, or another group." Izaya sounded interested now. He tilted his head, giving it some thought. "Have you seen this symbol before?"

Shizuo shook his head. "No. You?"

Izaya mirrored his shake of the head. "No. It's not a symbol that's been seen before in this warehouse, so it's not from one of the gangs that previously held it. None of the recent gangs have held it long enough to become established with it, but before we entered Raijin there used to be someone called Shishizaki who held it for all three years when he was here. After he left to go study overseas, this whole area became a bit of a mess."

"Really?" Shizuo couldn't help but be interested. Izaya seemed to know a lot about this. Izaya grinned back at him with a hint of pride.

"This warehouse has been around for at least ten years," he said. "That's more than enough time for an abandoned building to start developing a bit of a reputation. Some of the teachers at this school haven't even been here as long as this warehouse has. To them, it's just always been there, in the background. There are even ghost stories about vengeful spirits that haunt this area. So it's no wonder that students tell stories about this place."

A little thrill went through Shizuo. They were sitting very close together, on this couch. If he leaned his head down a bit, their foreheads would touch.

Just thinking about it made a flush of heat spread across his skin. Too late, Shizuo felt his ears burning, and realized that he was blushing.

Izaya looked at his flushed face, suddenly started to laugh. "Wait a second," he said. Shizuo knew where this was going, and he didn't like it. "Don't tell me - have you never held hands before? Is this your first time?"

Shizuo tried to pull his hand back, but Izaya just gripped it harder, threatening pain. Shizuo stopped immediately.

"You should see your face right now," Izaya said, and he sounded so gleeful that Shizuo nearly punched him in mortification. "Wow, so much for being the demon of the warehouse. You're so _cute_."

"Shut _up_," Shizuo hissed at him, but he couldn't get angry. If he squeezed, he could shatter all the bones in Izaya's hand.

So as Izaya teased him mercilessly for the rest of the day, Shizuo locked himself to stillness and tried not to hope for more.

.

.

.

Izaya waited alone in the darkness.

This wasn't the first time he stayed in the warehouse so late at night. On some nights, he even slept here, instead of going back home. But tonight he was expecting company, so Izaya stayed awake.

The warehouse doors creaked open.

A boy stepped in, around Izaya's age, dark-haired and plain-faced. In the darkness, it was hard to make out his face, but Izaya knew who this boy was, knew that there would be two moles on his face, one under each eye.

"Hi, Nakura," Izaya said.

"Hello," the boy replied warily.

There was a moment of silence as they both readjusted to each other's presence, after so long.

"So, have you gotten suspended from your new school?" Izaya asked. "Do you miss your old high school so much that you want to come back? Or are you hanging around here because you miss me so much?"

Nakura's smile twisted. "You're the same as ever," he spat. He pulled out a knife, pointed it at Izaya threateningly. "You were the one who got me kicked out of this school in the first place. You're the last person on earth that I want to see."

"How sweet of you." Izaya dismissed the blade as a threat. He was more interested in where Nakura had gotten it in the first place. He clasped his hands together.

"So," he said. "It seems like you've gotten yourself involved in something quite dangerous."

"Yeah," Nakura's teeth were bared. He seemed to think that his knife was giving him some aura of danger. "I'm here to tell you what's going to happen to this warehouse, and you're going to have to accept it."

"So I don't get a choice?"

"_No_, you don't get a choice."

"Do you really think you can make _me _do anything that you want?"

Nakura looked around dismissively. "You're just one ordinary human," he said. "And it seems like your friend isn't here to back you up."

Izaya went still, and a disbelieving smile tugged on the corners of his lips. "You mean Shizuo Heiwajima? My _friend_?"

Then, as Nakura watched, Izaya threw his head back and _laughed_.

He couldn't stop. It just burst out of him like an unstoppable force. Him and Shizuo, _friends_? Was that what it seemed like?

Izaya doubled over, and slapped the wooden boards beneath him several times in an effort to regain his breath.

_Friends_. As if something so tenuous as coexisting peacefully in the same space was something significant. They barely even knew each other, and Nakura had them pegged as _friends_.

Sure, Izaya knew that Shizuo disliked talkative strangers, that he disliked violence and fighting, disliked being around people who start fights or act tense or people who fear him and avoid them. So, Izaya did the exact opposite of what he normally would have done with such an interesting individual - he ignored them completely. He buried himself in his books and his work. He concentrated on other things, other plans, and left Shizuo alone. He knew that Shizuo didn't trust him. He _shouldn't _trust Izaya. Izaya used him as a pawn, after all, and it would take a while for that memory to fade. For now, Izaya was just satisfied with observing Shizuo from a close distance, like a tiger in a cage that it didn't realize that it was in a cage.

Izaya knew that it was madness to be in the same cage as the tiger, and that he should be keeping his distance. It was difficult to feign calm when Shizuo lost his temper, or when he accidentally brushed too close. But Izaya wasn't a stranger to dangerous situations.

He decided that it was time to deal with Nakura, now rather than later.

In one fast motion, he flipped out a knife, and flung it towards Nakura's head. Unlike the vague threat of Nakura's knife, this one had an intent behind it, and that made it dangerous.

The blade sank into Nakura's shoulder. He screamed and fell, clutching at it, dropping his own knife instantly.

Izaya took his time in walking over. He did not particularly enjoy hearing Nakura scream, but he thought it was a fitting punishment for his insult. _Just one ordinary human_. He leaned down to hold Nakura's shoulder, and fended off the weak blow that came from him.

"Fuck off," Izaya said, with false cheeriness. "I don't know why your friends seem to want this warehouse so badly, and I don't fucking care. It's _mine_. I won it, and so I get to decide whatever the hell I want to do with it."

Nakura was jerked upright, back onto his feet. Izaya smiled into his face.

"Got my message?" he asked.

To his surprise, Nakura laughed, sharp and bitter, and a little gleeful. He had been expecting this.

"You have no idea who you're messing with," he said. "It would be better to agree. I was sent here as a courtesy."

Izaya lost his patience. He opened the warehouse doors, and sent Nakura out with a shove on his back.

"Well then, tell them to give it their best shot." His blood was thrumming with anger, but it was a cold, slow kind of anger. He refused to let it show. Nakura dusted himself off, and turned to look at Izaya, Izaya was wearing a gleeful, manic expression.

"I will," Nakura promised. "But I promise you, Izaya - I swear on my soul. You'll be the one who'll be sorry in the end."

.

.

.

"Hey Izaya," Shizuo said as he came in, and then turned around and caught the doors a split second before they slammed shut, jamming his fingers in the process.

_"Fuck," _he hissed under his breath as the pain shot through his arm, but he kept the curse as quiet as possible because Izaya was asleep on the couch, curled up on his side, looking so peaceful and unconcious that there was no possibility of him still being awake.

He waited for the pain to fade, and then slowly eased the doors shut. They made a quiet click as they closed, a far quieter sound than the loud slam they would have made if they had closed on their own.

_Fuck, _he thought, again. He was even trying to _breathe _as quietly as possible, which wasn't easy with his heart hammering hard in his chest, and his lungs starved for oxygen. For a long, uncomfortable moment, Shizuo just curled his fingers into a fist and leaned against the warehouse doors, trying to catch his breath.

It took longer than it should have. After all, Shizuo was probably one of the worst people in the world at calming down.

Briefly, he considered leaving. He could go out those doors as quietly as he had come in, and then there would be no possibility of him accidentally disturbing Izaya's sleep with some loud sound or with his presence. But he had nowhere else he wanted to go.

Shizuo let his head fall forward, and lightly hit his forehead against the warehouse doors. It was enough to jar his head back on straight, but not enough to make a sound. _I'm an idiot_, he observed dryly. _I've been standing here for five minutes, because I'm terrified of waking him up. I wouldn't even do that for Kasuka._

And then, _I can't believe he's sleeping here of all places. Does he really feel that safe here?_

And then, banging his head against the warehouse doors each time: _I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot._

At last, he had scolded himself enough to return to a semblance of normal. He turned around, and deliberately keeping his breathing even and his steps quiet, he stole over to his usual spot in the warehouse, and sat down.

He had never really considered himself an empathetic person, especially since most of the time, Shizuo barely paid attention to other people. But when he thought about it again, he _did _tend to get angry around angry people, and right now, watching Izaya sleep so peacefully, Shizuo suddenly felt a desire to lie down and sleep as well.

_Is it just me? _He wondered, _or am I just really susceptible to his moods? _He found himself mirroring Izaya's moods so often, whether it was amusement or relaxation or interest. Was that normal? Shizuo tried to remember if he had ever done that with other people in his life, if their sudden smiles made him smile automatically too, or if it was just Izaya.

He was distracted from his inability to remember by a slight motion from Izaya. It was just a small shift, but it drew all of Shizuo's attention. 

Izaya looked so _comfortable_, as if he didn't have a single care in the world, as if he didn't have to worry at all about homework or tests or things to do or places to be. He looked like he had drifted off to sleep after a full meal, or while lying in a warm patch of sunlight. He looked as if he had never experienced any pain in the world, not hunger, or fear, or loneliness. Looking at him, Shizuo was struck by a strange combination of jealousy and near-painful appreciation, wanting just a fraction of that kind of peace, and intensely grateful that something so peaceful even existed in this world.

So, instead of pulling out his books to study, or lying down to sleep, Shizuo just tried to breathe as quietly as possible, and tried his best not to make any sudden movements.

He was suddenly reminded of something that happened when he was in middle school. His parents had once brought him and his brother to some sort of art gallery, where one section had little glass figurines displayed in cases that were spread along an entire wall. He didn't remember where it had been - a museum, or a temporary setup in a mall, or someplace else. He just recalled, vividly, a memory of staring up into the glass cases, and seeing the jewels in the glass cases sparkle as they caught the light.

He had never seen anything so pretty. And even back then, Shizuo had been impulsive, and acted before he thought.

So he had reached out and picked up the little jeweled figurine, carefully so that he wouldn't destroy it by accident, and had brought it closer so that he could run his fingers along the little miniature details, appreciating the clever work of whoever had made such a pretty thing.

Then, someone had yelled, loud and unexpected. In a spasm of guilt, Shizuo had tried to put the figurine back as quickly as possible, only to shatter it, along with the entire glass display along the wall. The thunderous cacophony of breaking glass and high-pitched screams from the onlookers had terrified him, and he had fled before anyone could catch him. Only later did he realize that there had been signs, saying LOOK BUT PLEASE DON'T TOUCH.

So, in the silence of the warehouse, Shizuo curled his hands into fists, pressed them against his sides, and did not reach out like he wanted to.

_He's not a figurine_, he thought dryly at himself. _He's not going to shatter if you touch him_.

But ever since the first time they'd met, Shizuo had always felt as if the delicate features on Izaya's face could be ruined with just a touch from him, had always felt as if just the brush of his knuckles would bruise that pale skin.

So he kept his hands to himself, and stayed as quiet as possible, and looked, but did not touch.


	6. Minoru

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(Warning signs, like, for example, the fact that people would show up every now and then, waving a knife around, threatening to kill him.)_

Shizuo could hear someone's raised voice from outside the warehouse - snarling and rough-voiced, cracking from a throat that had not yet reached puberty. Shizuo felt a spike of alarm as he pushed open the warehouse doors, and found the scene of an ongoing argument.

Both parties were so fixated on each other that neither noticed him come in. One was Izaya, standing a little away from the yelling boy, hands in his jacket, a fixed grin on his face that said he was trying to decide whether to be amused or irritated. The other boy that was yelling was short, with a round head that almost made him seem childish.

It took Shizuo a moment to recognize him as Minoru, one of Hayato's friends who had attacked him back in winter. He had been holding the bat, had suffered the first of many broken limbs that Shizuo had caused.

"I know you had something to do with it!" Minoru was the one yelling, and he had his back to the warehouse doors, and to Shizuo.

"I really didn't," Izaya replied.

"Then who broke Hayato's leg? And why won't he tell us anything about it?" Minoru yelled. He was shaking unnaturally, bringing so much tension in with him that Shizuo nearly started a fight with him just for _being_ there. "It's all your damn fault. You and that monster. _He's _no stranger to breaking limbs._"_

Izaya was staring at him like he was a puzzle, one he was figuring out. "I never told him to break any limbs," he said simply, but Shizuo couldn't tell if he was just trying to provoke a reaction or not.

At last, Izaya noticed that Shizuo had come in. He relaxed instantly, as if he had completely forgotten the danger, and smiled.

That seemed to be the last straw that ticked Minoru off. He pulled out a switchblade, snarling in fury. "Don't look away, you asshole! If it wasn't you, then -"

He made a lunge forward with his knife, but before he had taken two steps, Shizuo had reached out and crushed his grip. The switchblade fell to the ground.

When Shizuo's vision had cleared, Minoru was screaming with an inhuman quality to his voice. He curled around his injured hand. It was a disgusting sight, with fingers bent everywhere.

Leaving Minoru to scream, Shizuo separated Izaya from the threat of the switchblade, physically dragging the two apart. He checked for injuries, for the nick of the blade against skin, or for bruises.

"What's this all about?" He asked Izaya, because Minoru was too busy screaming to answer.

"I'm not sure," Izaya said. "He just barged in earlier, screaming his head off about Hayato getting injured because of me."

His expression changed into a warning, but it came a split second too late.

Shizuo was shocked by a sudden blow, powerful enough to make him lose his balance. When he looked down, Minoru had tears of pain and rage in his eyes. He looked wild, more like an animal than a human. "Take _that_, you monster!" He spat. Then, he swung back his damaged fist for another blow.

Shizuo took it, partly out of shock, partly out of curiosity. He had never seen so much force coming out from such a small person before, especially not out of someone so injured. The blow slammed into him with all the force of a moving car, knocking the breath right out of him.

He caught Minoru's wrist before the next blow came, pulling the other boy off balance. In the next instant, he had the boy face-down on the ground, his knee pressed against his shoulder blades, and Minoru's wrist twisted into an uncomfortable position behind his back. Minoru howled in pain, thrashing violently despite the fact that it only made things worse. He nearly dislodged Shizuo with the force of his convulsions.

Shizuo shivered. He was afraid of pulling too hard on Minoru's wrist, half-believed that it would come off like a barely-attached puppet arm. The shrieks that were coming out of Minoru's mouth had gained an inhuman, terrifying quality.

He looked up, expected to see Izaya shaken. Instead, he saw Izaya staring at Minoru with a fascinated expression on his face.

Finally, Izaya said: "Let him up, Shizuo. I think he's done now"

Shizuo couldn't get up fast enough. He felt as if his hands had been coated in an oily substance, and he couldn't get the sensation off of his palms. Minoru staggered up much more slowly, blessedly silent. His eyes were fixed on Izaya with an expression of pure hatred on his face.

In the end, Izaya was the one who broke the silence, speaking to Minoru. "I think you've made your point," he said. There was no anger or judgement in his voice. It was simply a dismissal.

"Get out," Shizuo said stiffly, and nearly threw Minoru out.

He looked at Izaya, checking for bruises or cuts, and found nothing except for a thin red line at his throat. He wanted to go back and give Miinoru a matching injury, only depeper, and more permanent. For a mad moment, he actually considered doing it.

"What was that all about?" Shizuo asked.

"He was blaming me for something I didn't do. Hayato showed up in crutches today, didn't you notice? And nobody knows why. Only," Izaya hesitated, as if realizing that he had spoken too much. Izaya touched his throat absently, but he didn't even seem to notice the motion. He was staring at Shizuo with a mixture of fascination and wonder. "I think," Izaya said abruptly, "I think we need to talk to him."

Shizuo couldn't follow. "What makes you think he'll tell you?"

Izaya smiled. "He might as well," he said. "I didn't break his legs, but it might technically be my fault anyway."

.

.

.

"It's none of your business," Hayato said. "Get out of my sight. I really don't want to deal with you right now."

Izaya crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the classroom desk. "I might know who did it," he said.

Hayato looked rather worse for wear. Not only were his legs broken, and wrapped heavily in plaster, he had an ugly bruise under one eye. It had turned purple and swollen, and he hunched over like someone who had been punched in the ribs too many times.

At this comment, Hayato turned on him, his expression turning into a snarl. "_Of course you know who did it_," he said. "You're the one who antagonized them in the first place, and got me caught up in it."

Izaya stilled. He had suspected this, but he had come here for confirmation.

So, Nakura and his friends were back, and they had taken his message to heart.

"What were they asking you to do?"

Hayato snorted. "For some reason, they thought I could convince you to hand the warehouse over."

"And you said no?" Izaya was impressed. He had not expected Hayato to refrain from violence that easily, especially after being given a golden opportunity to have a rematch.

"Of course I said no," Hayato snapped. "I don't want me and my friends to get beaten up again, and for _someone else's _gain. We've tried it before, and we lost. Why the hell would I say yes?"

There was an undercurrent of fear in his voice. Izaya picked up on it immediately, and it piqued his interest. What Hayato said was reasonable, but it wasn't the full truth.

Izaya tilted his head to one side, wondering.

"Did they really scare you that badly?" he asked, with the slightest hint of mockery.

Hayato bristled like a cat that had been stepped on. "Fuck off," he said harshly.

Izaya would get nothing more out of him. He bid Hayato farewell, and went back outside.

Shizuo was leaning against the classroom door, just outside. He was single-handedly scaring off all of Hayato's friends, who were hovering nearby, but unable to come within earshot. There was a tense air around him, like a string waiting to snap. Izaya touched his shoulder.

"Let's go," he said, and Shizuo fell into step behind him as they went down the hallway. Hayato's gang scattered to get out of their way, and it would have given Izaya a rush of power, if he hadn't been so preoccupied with what Hayato had said.

_Who are Nakura's friends? _He had assumed that they were just another gang, but none of the gangs he knew would be able to threaten Hayato like that. Was it someone else, then? Had he overlooked something?

"What did you talk about?" Shizuo asked, once they were outside, with the open sky overhead. He would accept any answer Izaya gave, and give no indication as to whether he believed Izaya or not. He was like that, sometimes. Wanting answers but never pressing for them.

"I know who's to blame for breaking Hayato's leg," Izaya told him, just to prove a point.

Shizuo glanced sideways at him, and it was far too understanding for Izaya's comfort level. "Who?" He asked, a little insistently.

"An old friend," Izaya replied, and that stopped Shizuo from asking any more questions.


	7. Devil's Rage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(And this had been the most obvious warning of all. This was when Shizuo should have realized that the danger around Izaya was not for show. It was real, and no matter what Shizuo did or said, Izaya would always start down this path eventually.)_

"Come with me," Izaya said. He didn't wait for a reply, he just bounded off toward the school gates. The sleeve of his jacket passed centimeters out of Shizuo's reach, just as Shizuo tried to stop him, to demand _why_.

With a sigh, Shizuo set his bag down, wondering if Izaya would even notice if he didn't follow. He had homework to do, essays to write. He wasn't sure what Izaya was up to now, but he was absolutely certain that it was nothing good. He hadn't even put his things in the warehouse yet. Izaya had been waiting for him outside.

By the time Izaya reached the school gates, Shizuo had caught up to him. There were still a few students milling about in the open yard, waiting for their parents to pick them up or waiting for friends to walk home with. Izaya never gave them a second glance. He seemed to be focused on something far out of reach, thinking hard.

"Where are we going?" They fell into step, going down the main street that ran in front of the school. Shizuo felt strangely self-conscious, aware of every passerby, aware of every set of potential eyes that would see the two of them walking together, side by side, close enough to touch. 

As they left the school building behind them, Izaya gave him a sharp-edged smile. His tone was light and teasing. "We're going on a date!"

Shizuo was used to it by now. "Tell me now, seriously. Or I'll turn around and go back."

The buildings on the side of the street merged from brick walls to storefronts, sporting worn out and broken signs for bakeries, snack shops, video game shops, diners, and clothing stores. Shizuo wondered if it was still too late to turn around, right now, to go back and get some actual work done. But by the time they had passed two streets and made two more turns, it was already too late. They were in an area Shizuo had never been to before, and he would have gotten lost trying to navigate back alone.

"I've been asked to look for someone called Masahiro Shin," Izaya said. He leaned into Shizuo, to make him turn right again. "His sister wants him to go home already, so she's hired me to pass on the message. You're coming with me for company."

"You mean I'm coming to be your hired muscle," Shizuo said dryly. "Only I'm not getting paid."

"Neither am I," Izaya shot back easily.

The street they had turned down led to a block of parking garages, all filled up at the end of the workday, even though it was still a weekday. The colorful signs from the main street had faded to asphalt grey and white.

"Why did she ask you for help?" Shizuo asked finally.

"Because I'm his friend," Izaya answered matter-of-factly. Shizuo ignored the hot streak of jealousy that ran through him.

"So you know where he is?"

"No."

Shizuo was so surprised that he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. "Then where are we going?"

Izaya gave him a mysterious smile. "To the place where delinquents gather."

"How can you tell where delinquents will gather?"

"It's simple. What places can you loiter about the longest, without being chased away by people with authority?"

Shizuo was skeptical. "I don't think it's that easy."

"It really is," Izaya countered. "How long do you think you could stand in the middle of the street before someone yelled at you to move?"

"It depends on the traffic. Maybe a couple of minutes, probably less."

Izaya turned around to look at him, walking backward. "And what about a random corner of the school? Say, the stairwell, or the rooftop."

Shizuo knew this firsthand. "You have until the janitor comes around, and tells you to stop blocking the way. They check the roofs at the end of the school day too, and they'll lock the door that leads out to it. So you could technically stand on the school roof for as long as you want, as long as you were okay with staying overnight."

Izaya gave him a small smile. "Let's go ahead and consider the entirety of the school grounds to be managed by the janitor. The streets, then, are managed by the police who patrol around this area. What about shops? Excluding the stores that are too crowded, or have no space to sit, and excluding restaurants where you need to pay to enter."

Izaya continued, "That leaves only a few spots in a one-mile radius around the school that delinquents can hang out without being bothered. By the way," his smile was sudden and warm, directed at Shizuo. "This is why the warehouse behind the school was fought over so often. It's extremely close to the school and extremely abandoned. Even if someone lived there for a few months, nobody would bother them. Additionally, you won't get intruders from other areas, like homeless people, because the only entrance is through the school."

"I see," Shizuo shoved his hands into his coat pockets to keep himself from reaching out. Izaya's hair was tangled from the wind, and he looked like he was having fun, balancing on the edge of the sidewalk, acting like a kid. He looked around for a distraction, for something to look at instead of Izaya.

They had reached a children's playground, old and abandoned. There was a group of older kids, too tall to fit in properly with the child-sized swings and playground equipment, clustered around one end of it. There was nobody else around. Their voices were smoke-rough and sharp with banter, but they stopped talking when they saw Shizuo and Izaya approaching.

"That's him," Izaya said lowly into Shizuo's ear, pointing out a thin, gangly boy sitting off to one side. His hair was dyed to a rusty red color, clearly done on his own without proper bleaching. He looked vacantly up into the sky, his thin wrists draped over his knees. "Masahiro Shin, the redhead."

The boys around Masahiro Shin had clumped together in an angry, defensive knot. Their eyes were fierce with an unspoken warning to go away, to leave them alone. Shizuo felt their nervous energy infect him, making the adrenaline in his veins shiver to life. He felt a fight coming on, whether he wanted it or not.

Izaya stopped a few feet away from them. He seemed to be totally unaffected by their murderous looks. "Either you give us Masahiro," he said amicably, "Or we'll have to take him ourselves. What will it be?"

.

Shizuo's fist took the last guy in the jaw, dropping him to the ground in a boneless heap. The boy whimpered on the ground, but Shizuo knew that he had not broken any bones.

There were at least eight boys on the ground, all sprawled out or curled up over various injuries. If they had only been a group of four or five, perhaps, they would not have been so overconfident. At first, Izaya's words had given them pause. A few had glanced uncertainly at Masahiro, who didn't seem to be a core part of the group, who was sitting dumbly by himself, not paying any attention. They had seemed unwilling to get into a fight just for his sake.

But in the end, they only had themselves to look out for, and in their minds, there were four to one odds. That was more than decent enough for them, and they had swaggered to their feet, furious at being disturbed. They hadn't expected Izaya to just get out of the way, hadn't expected Shizuo's strength.

"Sorry," Izaya said behind him. He hadn't even been touched. "I thought they would listen to reason, but I guess none of them knew you."

Shizuo bit back his automatic response, which was: _It's okay_.

It _wasn't_ okay, he told himself. He would _not _get into fights just for Izaya's entertainment anymore. Those days were over. He wasn't just hired muscle. He wasn't using his strength for senseless violence. He was helping a sister find her brother.

A brother, who by the looks of him, either had some serious sickness or was just wrong in the head. Masahiro Shin had barely stood up before stumbling into a dead faint.

"What do we do about him?" Shizuo glanced at the hold he had on the unconscious red-haired boy. His face was a pasty white, and he looked even thinner up close as if he hadn't been eating.

"We bring him to his sister," Izaya said.

.

Maebara Shin was plain-faced, with long brown hair curling around her shoulders, and liquid brown eyes. But she stood on the steps next to the school gates, hands on her hips, looking so fierce that Shizuo half expected her to demand a trial by combat. He deposited Masahiro in front of her.

"He's all yours," he said.

"Thanks," she replied. She was looking at Izaya though. "What do I owe you?"

"I'll tell you later," Izaya promised.

Masahiro started to wake up, eyelashes fluttering, seeming more like he had come out of a trance than waking up from a deep sleep. He saw Maebara first. With a panicked yell, he scrambled backwards away from her, toward the school gates.

"_Hey!_" Her kick took him straight in the midsection, pinned him against the brick columns. Her face was a mask of fury. "Where do you think you're going, you _thief_?"

She ground her heel harder into his stomach, and Masahiro whimpered painfully. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm -"

She struck him hard across the cheek. He shut up, hanging his head low, looking too weak to resist. Shizuo started forward angrily, but Izaya held him back with a small shake of his head and the slight press of fingers against his wrist.

That slight touch shouldn't have been enough to restrain him. If it had been any other person, Shizuo wouldn't even have noticed it. He stared at Izaya, feeling something sick knotting in his stomach, wondering if he had just been tricked again.

Izaya didn't look disturbed by the sudden violence at all. He seemed as if he had expected this. _Not yet_, his look said.

Over by Masahiro, Maebara Shin was yelling into her older brother's face. "You _will _pay me back what you stole, even if you have to work every day, even until you're sick, even if you have to work to the _death _to do it. You fucking _bastard! _Are you even _listening _to me?"

Tears were running down Masahiro's cheeks. He looked at his sister with pleading eyes, trying to get out his stammers of apology. "I couldn't help it," he sobbed. "I'm sorry, sis. I couldn't -"

She gave him a disgusted shake of her head. "Spare me your excuses," she snarled. "Now, give me whatever you _didn't _spend."

His horrified look said it all. His hands dove into the pockets of his pants as if he half-hoped something would be there. They came out slowly, empty.

Maebara exploded in anger. "What the _fuck _did you spend it all on?" A note of despair entered her voice. "_Masahiro_, what the _fuck _have you gotten yourself into?"

When Masahiro didn't answer, she started to cry too. The sight seemed to shock Masahiro out of his daze. His face crumpled. He reached for her, and she fell forward into his arms. The two siblings ended up embracing, clinging on to each other, sobbing messily.

"Let's go someplace quieter," Izaya suggested to them, not unkindly. His touch on Maebara's shoulder was gentle. "Come with me. I think I might be able to help."

.

Shizuo fumed, pacing around the outside of the warehouse, making round after round after round in that packed bare earth. He thought his heels must have worn a track into the dust by now, must have made a permanent path. He was too agitated not to move. If he stopped, he felt as if he would explode.

The story was this: the upperclassmen in Masahiro's track and field team had gotten him addicted to drugs. They had acted friendly, acted supportive even as his family troubles made him late to practice over and over again. Secretly, they had resented him for being a poor upstart nobody who might take one of their starting spots on the team. So, under the guise of helping him improve his performance, they had suggested that he start taking pills called Devil's Rage.

The effects of Devil's Rage were wonderful at first. Masahiro ran faster, got tired less often, could improve his 100-meter sprint time by almost twelve seconds. Everyone praised him, had been delighted for him, or so he had thought.

Then, the withdrawal symptoms had begun to kick in: long periods of time where he lost his memory, waking up in the middle of nowhere or in a strange classroom. He would start freaking out periodically, imagining fights where there were none, imagining strangers coming up to him and stabbing him with knives. He could no longer go to class. He could no longer go to practice. His family was at a loss of what to do; they had never seen such symptoms before. They thought he was going insane, that he had a mental problem that no one could fix.

He started hanging out with a bad crowd, the only kind of people who could sometimes get him access to more drugs to numb the withdrawal symptoms. The problem was that it was expensive. All of his summer earnings disappeared in a flash. Then, he had turned to his sister, the treasurer of the judo team, and asked to borrow money…

Shizuo felt so disgusted that he could barely breathe. White-hot anger filled him, at the track-and-field upperclassmen, at Masahiro for being a gullible idiot, at the delinquents for giving him more drugs instead of the help he needed, at Izaya, for getting him involved in this ugly mess, and at himself, for being so useless in the middle of it all.

There was one more person Shizuo was angry at, although he hated to admit it to himself. Maebara Shin, for the way Izaya led her by the hand into the warehouse, for the look in her eyes when she listened to his soothing words. She liked Izaya - she had fallen for him ever since that gentle touch on her shoulder at the school gates.

_Fuck!_ He kicked a crate of hockey sticks into the air. It flew ten feet up and landed with a crash onto the warehouse roof, and then rolled down to crash again onto the ground. He felt sick with shame. _There's a drug distribution ring going on at my school, and I'm -_

He couldn't even finish the thought. Shizuo resumed his pacing around the warehouse, trying not to think about what was going on inside. He supposed that Izaya had a job for Masahiro, one that paid well enough to cover his debts. And with Maebara there, Izaya could both guarantee that Masahiro would comply and that the money wouldn't be spent on drugs.

The sun was low in the sky now, turning into a blood red orange. Shizuo wanted to leave, wanted to go home and try to wash away the anger in his veins and the restlessness in his body. But his bags were still inside the warehouse, and he didn't want to go back in.

He came around the corner and stopped. Izaya stood in the middle of his path.

There was no trace of an amused smile on his face, no hidden mirth at all. Izaya looked deadly serious. He made a breathtaking picture, silhouetted by the setting sun.

Looking at him, Shizuo was suddenly reminded of a superstition his classmates had. _Beware the devil of the crossroads, with his red eyes and white skin. He'll give you what your heart desires but he'll take your soul as payment._

The thought left as quickly as it came. Izaya was looking at him, concern in his eyes, soft and warm and human.

"I was worried that you had left," he said.

Anger and jealousy bloomed in Shizuo's veins, so suddenly that he had to fight to keep his voice level. "I couldn't. My things are still inside. I didn't want to disturb your conversation with your guests."

"They're gone now," Izaya said. "They left just a while ago."

"Good," Shizuo said. He started toward the warehouse doors.

Suddenly, Izaya rushed forward into him. His arms came around Shizuo, and his feet carried him forward further still. Shizuo stopped breathing in pure shock. His heart felt like it had stopped and had just roared to life again, pounding double time in his chest. Izaya leaned into Shizuo's body, and the warmth of his body was completely unlike anything Shizuo had felt before.

"I'm sorry," Izaya said. Shizuo felt the vibration of his words start in his throat before they came out from his mouth. He could feel each breath that Izaya took, the way it made his body shift, the way it made his chest rise and fall. His words were strangely soothing. "I didn't mean to stress you out like that. Thank you for coming with me today. I really needed you out there."

The ability to breathe returned. Shizuo leaned back into Izaya slightly, shocked by the comfort of Izaya's embrace.

"It's okay," he said automatically, even though it _hadn't _been okay. He felt the shuddering tension in his veins start to leave, burned out by a different kind of heat. Shizuo welcomed the change. He brought his hands up slowly to settle around Izaya's waist. He went dizzy from the way Izaya settled into his arms, trusting him completely.

Izaya must have felt him relax. "Better?" He asked in a soft murmur.

Slowly, the last of Shizuo's tension drained away. It left him aching and tired, as if all of his adrenaline from the fight had finally disappeared. He could feel the dip of Izaya's spine, could lean against the solid support of the other's body. He was suddenly, intensely grateful for Izaya's presence. Instead of speaking, Shizuo just nodded silently.

"Good," Izaya breathed a sigh of relief. Even though Shizuo expected him to, he didn't move away.

"This was surprisingly effective," Izaya added jokingly. "I've never seen you calm down so fast. Maybe instead of fighting you, the delinquents should have just given you a group hug."

Shizuo struggled to find a suitable response to Izaya's joke. "I don't think that would have worked for them," he answered finally. He pulled away.

Izaya's smile had an edge to it, like a threat. "Well, you never know."

He started back toward the warehouse, leaving Shizuo in a lurch, as if he had been leaning on an invisible support that had just been taken away.

"Maybe I should ask for some volunteers," Izaya called back over his shoulder. "We can run some experiments, see which combination calms you down the fastest. This is important information, you know. Some people would pay a lot to see that."

"Don't you fucking dare," Shizuo said, but he ruined it by sounding too close to laughter.


	8. Mikage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(He knew he was being used, but he let it happen anyway.)_

"I’m going to pick a fight with someone," Izaya said.

He said it in a perfectly normal tone, as if he were saying something like _I’m going to go to the store_.

Shizuo sat up, startled. "What? Why?"

Izaya was already turning to leave. He had just opened the warehouse doors, dropped the bombshell of a statement, and seemed to be waiting impatiently for Shizuo to follow.

"Well?" Izaya said, without answering. "Are you coming or not?"

Then, because he was already leaving, Shizuo had no choice. He had to run a little to catch up. When he did, he had more questions spinning around in his head.

"Where are you going?" Shizuo asked.

"To my old dojo," Izaya said. "There's an old acquaintance of mine who apparently needs to learn some manners."

He was angry, Shizuo realized. He wasn’t sure if he had ever seen Izaya angry. There was a tightness to his mouth, a dark set in the depths of his eyes. It was a cold thing, this anger. It made Shizuo uneasy.

"Are you gonna tell me about it?"

"No," Izaya said shortly. Something in his tone made Shizuo shut up.

They passed a few residential streets before coming to a small area with an open garden and an old-style building. It looked out of place in the cityscape, as if a random park had been transplanted into the middle of the city.

"Mikage," Izaya called out as he poked his head into the door. He seemed familiar with this place. Shizuo hung around a little awkwardly at the entrance. He had never really been in a place like this before, and it all seemed unfamiliar to him. He wasn't sure if he should bow, or what the etiquette was. Izaya simply seemed to have no etiquette at all, but Shizuo remembered that he had probably come here often when he was a child.

"What are you doing here, Orihara?" A tall man in a white uniform poked his head out. When he saw Izaya, he came out the rest of the way on crutches.

Both of his legs seemed to be wrapped entirely in white bandages, and he glared at Izaya with contempt. Then his brows creased in confusion. "It’s a little early to be picking up your sisters. They’re still in sparring class right now."

"I'm looking for Mikage," Izaya said.

The man's face stiffened. "That's Mikage-sensei to you," he snarled. "Show some proper respect, you brat."

Izaya ignored him, and called again. "Mikage! Come out here and face me right now, or I'll tell your brother what you've been up to."

A shoe came flying out of the doorway, and Izaya barely dodged it. It slammed into the fence gate with a loud _thunk_.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, threatening _me_?" The voice that came from inside was unexpectedly low,

Shizuo thought for a second that the person who came out was a boy. Then he saw the bindings covering her chest, and looked away, embarrassed. The girl that came out of the doorway barely had anything else on.

Izaya sounded as if he were smiling, but his words were cold. "I should be the one asking you that. What the _fuck_, Mikage?"

Mikage glanced at her brother. "I'll sort this kid out," she said to him sharply. He frowned at her.

"He’s a lost cause, Mikage."

"It's none of your business," both Izaya and Mikage said together, then matched glare for glare.

"Let's go," Izaya said to Mikage. "Unless you want to talk this out here?"

Mikage thew her other shoe at him. "If you say another word," she warned. "I'll fuck you up. Understand me?"

People were beginning to poke their heads out now, drawn by the commotion. Kids aged around twelve to eighteen, barefoot and dressed in white doboks. They all reacted with immediate recognition as soon as they laid their eyes on Izaya.

"It’s him!" one shouted, an older boy around their age.

More feet pattered on wooden slats, and more heads popped into view in the doorway. Shizuo tensed. The air was turning cold and sharp, the way it usually did just before a fight.

Mikage was narrowing her eyes, considering. Izaya seemed to catch her train of thought.

"You’re not getting out of this," he said. "You’re coming with me, whether you want to or not."

That seemed like the worst possible thing to say. Shoulders bristled everywhere that Shizuo looked. Faces suddenly went hostile. Izaya seemed to be recognized here, but Mikage was respected. Adored, even. More than a few students took a step forward at Izaya’s threatening tone.

Mikage sensed it too.

"You’ve been playing at being a delinquent, Izaya," she said. "But threatening people isn’t your style. You shouldn’t start doing it now. Leave. _Now_."

Her students were closing in around her, and around them, crowding in, pressuring. With her command, all of them turned and focused in unison. Shizuo gave Izaya a sidelong glance, but Izaya didn’t seem to want to move in the slightest.

"Izaya -" Shizuo started.

A fool boy came too close, reached out to shove Izaya backwards, clearly intending to bully him out of the yard. Without thinking, Shizuo grabbed his wrist before he could reach Izaya.

He was faster than either of them expected. For a moment, everyone around them stilled as they remembered who Shizuo Heiwajima was, and the fact that he was here at all. Shizuo looked at Izaya again, and only saw coldness in his eyes.

"Break his arm," Izaya said.

Shizuo hesitated, and then dislocated the boy’s shoulder. It made a sound like a wet _pop_, and the boy screamed as if his arm had been torn off.

Instantly, there was a scream, a ripple, as everyone jerked backwards in horror. Mikage was the only one starting forward, mouth falling open, astonishment filling her expression.

Shizuo felt cold again, like something poisonous had entered his stomach, and was spreading pain throughout his entire body. He let go of the boy’s wrist, and the boy spun around, clutching at his elbow, shoulders hunching. Everything went silent.

"Don’t make me do worse," Izaya said, and Shizuo had never quite realized it before, why he liked being around Izaya so much. Around Izaya, people forgot about him, and forgot about the danger that came with him. Around Izaya, he was just a tool, and all the threat came from somewhere else.

_I’m being used_, he realized.

Then, _I’m letting myself be used._

Outside of the ringing realization, and the white space it had created in the world around him, Mikage was talking to the boy with the dislocated arm. Her eyes were intent on him,, telling him to focus. With a merciless shove, she popped his arm back into its socket.

Then she looked at Izaya, not at Shizuo.

"Fine, you monster," she said. "Let’s go."

.

.

.

Mikage Sharaku was, more or less, Izaya’s childhood friend. Their parents had enrolled him in Mikage’s dojo, and he had taken martial arts classes there ever since he was small. After reaching middle school, Izaya had stopped going. He seemed to find nothing else worth learning there, saw it as old, familiar ground with nothing interesting to offer.

Izaya explained all of this to Shizuo in a low undertone, as Mikage went back to change and came out wearing a bit more clothing.

His anger seemed to have disappeared completely. Seeing all of Mikage’s students back off and nearly run away had done a considerable amount to improve his mood. Hell, he was almost _smiling_.

On the way back to the warehouse, Izaya led the way, with Mikage and Shizuo flanking him almost like two bodyguards. Shizuo wondered why it seemed so natural to have Izaya lead. Mikage was strong. He had seen her callouses, had seen more than he wanted to of her muscles. And he was - well, he was himself. So why was Izaya leading?

Mikage caught his sideways glance, and looked back at him directly.

"I’m sorry," she said to him quietly, and she sounded genuinely sorry. "I didn’t mean to involve you."

Every muscle in Shizuo’s body tensed. What was he supposed to react to that? _I’m sorry I dislocated your student’s arm. But if I hadn’t, I would have needed to break a lot more bones._

"I’m sorry too," he said, just as quietly.

In the warehouse, Izaya closed the door, and then spun on both of them, folding his arms and blocking the exit.

"Shizuo," he said, with a false cheeriness. "Meet Mikage, Masahiro’s drug dealer. Mikage, meet Shizuo, your replacement."

.

.

.

Shizuo felt the floor drop out beneath him.

He looked from Izaya to Mikage, and barely kept his emotions in check. He felt as if one statement would have been enough to floor him. Both of these bombshells, dropped one after another, just made him feel numb.

Mikage looked just as stunned. Her normally fierce expression melted away. She looked sick, pale, afraid.

"So you knew," she said finally.

"I found out," Izaya replied. "And it was not a nice surprise."

"How?"

But he waved away her question. Izaya was already speaking. "What the _hell _were you thinking, Mikage?" For once, that false cheeriness was gone. "Nakura, I could have understood, maybe. But _you_? What the fuck are _you _doing, getting involved in dealing drugs? Don’t you have the dojo to think about? _Why?_"

"I need money," Mikage said bluntly. "And I need to earn it fast. My brother got hit by a car, and we weren’t expecting the hospital bills."

Izaya crossed his arms. "Sell your dojo," he said.

Mikage’s furious lunge was halted by Shizuo blocking her way. He still felt numb, but this felt automatic to him, as if he had turned into a machine rather than a thinking human.

"Not an option," she said tightly.

"Then ask for a loan," Izaya said.

"Do you even hear yourself right now?"

Izaya smiled tightly, giving her the point. "So, you’re selling drugs for some quick cash. Sounds dangerous. Sounds like something this school wouldn’t really want you doing, especially as a student."

"Don’t even try," she said. "If you do, I’ll kill you. Like I said, I need the money."

"So you _are _threatening me?" Izaya asked, a little hopefully. "Alone? With Shizuo right here?"

Mikage only spared Shizuo a cursory glance. "I can take him," she said.

"I’d pay to see that," Izaya muttered. He ran a hand through his hair, and Shizuo felt a jab of jealousy, sharp and deep. He had never seen this side of Izaya before.

"Who put you up to this?" Izaya asked. "Give me a name, I’ll - "

"Don’t even think about it," Mikage cut him off sharply. "You can’t take them on. They’re adults. You’re just a kid. You don’t stand a chance."

Izaya’s eyes narrowed.

"I’m protecting you," she said.

Then, for the first time, Shizuo saw Izaya lose his temper.

It started out cold, and soft. "Protecting," Izaya said quietly. His voice became poisonous and sweet. "Oh Mikage, do you really think I need _you _for that?"

Mikage’s eyes jerked to Shizuo, and then away. Something inside Shizuo twisted with the realization of what Izaya meant, and twisted again with the realization that Izaya could say something so cruel.

Then, Izaya just sighed. He leaned back against the door.

"Shizuo," he said.

Shizuo’s attention snapped to him, even though he wanted to remain still, wanted to get away from here and process everything that he had just heard. Everything inside him was tumbling upside down in a chaotic whirl. He was sure that if he tried to move, he would be sick.

"Here’s the culprit you were looking for," Izaya said. "Here’s the person who caused Masahiro so much misery, and who indirectly caused you so much pain. Now you’ve heard her excuses. What do you think? Should I let her go, and continue selling drugs? Or should I put a stop to it now?"

Shizuo stared at him.

"What are you talking about_?_" he asked.

Izaya paused, or rather, stopped. He looked suddenly vulnerable, as if he had run right to the edge of a cliff, and was stunned to see it there.

Mikage was glaring at Izaya again. "If you try to stop me," she said. "I’ll bring all my people here, and we’ll take this warehouse away from you."

"I thought you were a _team_, not a gang," Izaya said, a jab so halfhearted that he barely put any effort into it.

"We’ll fight you if we have to."

"You’d drag them into your crimes?"

"Why not?" Mikage said. "That’s what _you’ve _done, right?"

Izaya laughed in a way that Shizuo had never heard him laugh before. Harsh, too loud, too close to cackling, and too cold.

"You’re right," he said. "Well then, if Shizuo won’t judge you, then I will."

.

Later, after Izaya left, all of Mikage and Shizuo’s wariness toward each other melted away. Now that Shizuo had nothing to protect, and Mikage had nothing left to attack, they stared at each other at a loss of what to do. Away from Izaya, there was no hostility in Mikage at all. She was just another girl, albeit with strong features and a startlingly direct gaze.

At last, Mikage asked: "Is it true?"

"What?"

"That you beat up fifty delinquents in order to win the rights to this warehouse."

She sounded _impressed_. Shizuo wondered briefly if she had been there, and if he had just forgotten her face. But no, obviously, based on the last conversation, she hadn’t been.

"Yes," he said, a little awkwardly. He still wasn’t sure what the general perception of him was. As far as he could tell, none of the teachers knew who had caused all those injuries, but all the delinquents seemed to know. He supposed that Mikage counted as a delinquent now.

"What did Izaya do to convince you to fight?" Mikage asked. She looked at Shizuo with avid curiosity, but her curiosity changed to defensiveness when she saw his surprise. "I’ve known him since we were kids," she said stiffly. "I know what he’s like. Tell me, what did he promise you in exchange?"

"He didn’t really promise me anything," Shizuo said. "I just sort of ended up there on my own."

Mikage studied him.

"You must be like me," she said abruptly. "Otherwise, you wouldn’t let yourself be used like that. You seem too smart to be fooled."

_I’m not being used_, Shizuo wanted to say, but it wasn’t true. He studied her.

"Who were you?" he asked. _What am I a replacement for?_

She was unsurprised by the question.

"I was his girlfriend," she said flatly. "But it doesn’t mean what you think it does."

It turned out that, in exchange for letting his sisters stay at the dojo from the afternoon till evening, Izaya had allowed Mikage to call him her boyfriend. There was some family stuff going on, stuff that Mikage did not elaborate on. In any case, Izaya needed the twins to stay there until nightfall, which was when he usually picked them up and brought them back home.

"I wanted to keep him affiliated with my dojo somehow," Mikage explained. "A lot of girls joined because he was there. They didn’t seem to mind the fact that he has a girlfriend. He’s good publicity for us."

Shizuo stared at her, astonished by her cold, practical logic. The more he stared, the more uncomfortable Mikage looked.

"And he’s alright with that?" Shizuo asked.

Mikage shrugged. "Izaya’s like that," she said. "He’ll use anyone, and think nothing of it. It’s one of his few redeeming qualities, though. It doesn’t matter if you’re a girl, or a child, or a monster. He’ll treat you just the same."

With that, she left, but not without giving Shizuo a wave of goodbye. Shizuo stared after her, shocked. No one had ever called him a monster to his face before, so nonchalantly. She was brave. He would give her that.

Later, Shizuo realized that this answered one of his many questions about Izaya - why he always stayed in the warehouse so late. The dojo was much closer to the school than Izaya’s house. It meant that, for much of high school, Izaya had been the same as Shizuo, wandering around the streets instead of going home. This realization, out of the many that came from remembering this conversation over and over, was one of the few ones that did not hurt.


	9. Mooncakes

_(There were little things that Izaya did, things that Izaya said, that made it clear that he had a warped sense of morality.)_

For a long time, after meeting Mikage, there was another long stretch of peaceful, uneventful weeks, and Shizuo could almost pretend that nothing had actually happened.

Izaya had seemed to forget about it too. He never brought it up, never mentioned Mikage's name or the outside group that now owned the warehouse. They continued to meet there after school, to hang out and relax in the rising warmth of the approaching summer.

At first, Shizuo was so tense around Izaya that he thought he would snap. But over time, he relaxed again. He could never make himself stay away from the warehouse for long.

.

"Do you have any news for me?" Shizuo asked, putting down his bag. He was in a strangely good mood today. He felt like teasing Izaya a little, so he went on. "Any stabbings? Any sightings? Any more strange deals? I'm seriously considering charging you protection money for this place. You know the only reason you're left alone here is because of me."

"I know," Izaya sang at him. "But you're so easy to bribe."

"With _what_?" Shizuo went to his usual spot in the warehouse, and settled in to a comfortable chair with a wooden desk in front of it. The desk had been thrown out for having a wobbly leg - that had been fixed by just putting a textbook underneath it. The chair used to be a teacher's, thrown out from the teacher's lounge.

Izaya came around behind him, running his fingers briefly through Shizuo's hair. The sensation went through Shizuo's body like a shiver of heat.

Then, Izaya deposited a bag of red-bean mooncakes in front of him.

After a moment, Shizuo picked one up and bit into it. It was still warm.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, surprised. Izaya had already rounded away from him, but he wore a satisfied smile, as if he had anticipated that question.

"Guess," Izaya sat back down, watching Shizuo with vicarious pleasure.

Shizuo threw a moon cake at him, and Izaya caught it with a laugh. "You skipped school, you rascal. Didn't your parents ever tell you not to do that? How did you manage it?"

Izaya nibbled into the moon cake before answering. "I just changed out of my school uniform. The lady who owns this sweets shop knows me pretty well by now. She's not going to tell on me."

As usual, Izaya didn't comment about his parents. Shizuo wondered why. Izaya's parents seemed to be out of the picture entirely, and he had the impression that Izaya hadn't spoken to them in a while. He had a feeling that it would be bad manners to ask.

Shizuo let the matter drop. The moon cakes were freshly made, and the red bean filling was just the right amount of sweet, rich with flavor and smooth to bite through. Before he knew it, he had finished the bag already.

Izaya offered him half of his mooncake. "I don't really like sweet things," he said morosely, as Shizuo crumpled the bag into a ball. "I think the way to maximize happiness here is for you to have this half."

Shizuo paused. "Really?"

"Take the damn cake, Shizuo."

Shizuo went over and took it out of Izaya's hands. As Izaya watched, he swallowed the whole thing in one bite.

"Mmn," Izaya bit his lip, but he was trying not to laugh. "Definitely savoring it to the fullest, I see."

Shizuo felt a strange shiver go through his body as the mooncake went down his throat. He tried not to look at the color of Izaya's lips, and the slant of his smile, tried not to think about the small, delicate bites Izaya had taken out of that mooncake.

"I might need your help with something later," Izaya said, and here it was - the request in exchange for the bribe. Shizuo stiffened, but Izaya added: "It shouldn't involve any fighting."

"Okay," Shizuo said, even though it _wasn't _okay. He was being used, again, and he was helpless to stop it.

"Relax," Izaya laughed at him. "I just need you to stand around and look threatening while I ask a couple of questions. The seniors won't take me seriously, otherwise."

Shizuo relaxed. "Is this about Masahiro?"

Izaya nodded.

"I'm still trying to find out who gave Mikage drugs in the first place," he said. Shizuo stiffened at the unexpected mention of her, but Izaya didn't seem to notice.

"What for?" Shizuo asked.

Izaya shrugged. When he answered, it was something Shizuo had not expected.

"Curiosity," he said, and smiled.

.

.

.

_(Like that time Izaya had kissed him.)_

The first time Izaya kissed him, it had come out of nowhere. They were sitting side by side, enjoying the warmth and the bright light that slanted down from the large windows overhead. Everything about that day had been hazy, dreamy.

Shizuo had managed to forget, for a while, that Izaya could never belong to him. It was enough, he thought, to sit like this, to have Izaya by his side. Even if it was just for now, it was a blissful kind of peace.

Izaya had an unusually soft look in his eyes, his smiles were warmer, as if the outside temperature had entered his bloodstream.

Shizuo could sate his longing with moments like this, could keep them in his memory to revisit over and over, later, when he was alone. He had never given Izaya an indication of his feelings, and never intended to.

Which was why, when Izaya kissed him, Shizuo was shocked by the desire that bloomed inside him. It was endless. It almost consumed him. Izaya's lips had been a little cold, from the popsicle he had finished eating. It had been sweet, with a faint trace of sugar and chemicals. Shizuo felt his lips tingle, and felt so lightheaded that he could barely breathe.

Was _this _what it would be like, kissing Izaya? If so, he never wanted to stop.

Izaya came closer. His hand touched the skin under Shizuo's shirt.

And then Shizuo remembered Mikage.

He had reached out to stop Izaya before he even realized it. There was an awful combination of arousal and horror mixing in his veins. He couldn't look Izaya in the eyes.

What was Izaya _doing_? Sure, his relationship with Mikage had all been for show, but this felt _wrong_. It felt like heaven, but there was an uncomfortable feeling in Shizuo's chest that simply wouldn't go away.

_I'm sorry_, he wanted to say, but Izaya was no longer looking at him. He had turned away, and flopped onto his side. He didn't offer an explanation for what he had just done, didn't say anything. Shizuo stared at him for a long time, but he couldn't find anything to say either.

The silence that followed was long and tense. Later, Shizuo would realize that they never did end up talking about that kiss.

.

.

.

_(Like that time Izaya had found a whole cooler of alcohol from somewhere, and they had spent an afternoon getting drunk in the warehouse.)_

"Do you drink?" Izaya asked, watching him with an expectant grin, clearly waiting for him to ask where the cooler had come from. He seemed to have a good story this time, one that he wanted to share badly. Shizuo refused to entertain him.

"A little," he closed the wine cooler and stood up, and hid a triumphant smile at the look on Izaya's face.

"What a delinquent," Izaya said in mock tones of shock and horror. He gave it up immediately, though, throwing his arms over the back of the couch. "Is there any particular type that you like?"

Shizuo shot him a look at the implication that Izaya could buy alcohol whenever he wished. "I haven't really tried anything besides beer," he admitted. It had tasted awful, and he hadn't really wanted to experience it again. His father had just laughed and said - _well now you know you're not really missing out on anything._

"Do you know any drinking games?" Izaya asked, and Shizuo shook his head.

"Do you have one in mind?" Shizuo asked, and Izaya nodded.

He set out two bottles on the table, and settled himself next to it, cross-legged.

"The rules are simple," Izaya said. "We take turns asking each other questions. You can either answer, or drink."

Shizuo sat down across from him, and opened his bottle. After a moment, Izaya opened his as well.

.

"Why were you stalking me?" Shizuo asked, putting his glass down on the wooden table. The alcohol burned the back of his throat, but it went down easily.

Izaya smiled at him in amusement. "That's your question? Really, you should have asked me something way more embarrassing, like who was my first crush, or when I had my first kiss."

"Answer," Shizuo said stubbornly. "Or drink."

After a pause, Izaya took a drink.

"Are you serious?" Shizuo protested, even though he started to laugh. "You haven't answered a single question so far. You've just been drinking. I thought for sure that you'd answer that one."

"Don't quibble," Izaya scolded. He poured another round. "Maybe I just don't want to reveal any of my secrets."

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said, feeling like he was being played somehow. He had answered nearly half of the questions, which meant that Izaya had drank twice the amount that he had. And yet, Izaya looked stone cold sober, whereas Shizuo was starting to feel slightly tipsy. "Your turn, and ask an actual question this time."

Izaya considered him for a moment, leaning his cheek against his palm.

"Okay," he said finally. "What's your ideal type?"

Shizuo frowned. He couldn't exactly answer - _you're my ideal type_. He wasn't drunk enough to say that sort of thing out loud.

"The quiet kind," he replied. Then he took a drink, because that had felt like a half-truth instead of a real answer.

Izaya stared at him, and started to laugh. "You know you're supposed to either answer or drink," he said. "Why are you doing both?"

Shizuo glared at him, but Izaya didn't restrain his laughter one bit. "You can drink whenever you want," Izaya teased. "I'm just saying."

.

Later, after the cooler was empty, they both sprawled on various surfaces, and tried not to be sick.

"I don't think standing up is a good idea," Izaya said preemptively, from where he lay on the couch, curled up comfortably. Shizuo tried to stand up anyway.

Immediately, he sat back down. "You're right," he said shortly.

"I told you," Izaya sang, but it was blurry with drunkeness.

Shizuo fought back the urge to laugh. Izaya had never sounded that strange before. It was good to know that, in the end, his alcohol tolerance had been better.

"It's not fair," Izaya protested, picking up the old thread of complaint. "I think you ended up drinking three times as much as I did. I thought _my_ alcohol tolerance was amazing. Who the hell _are_ you?"

"It's not that weird," Shizuo replied, and leaned back against the couch. Izaya immediately started playing with his hair as it came into reach. "You're pretty skinny compared to me, so it should affect you a lot more than it does me."

"I know," Izaya said, struggling to keep his words as clear as possible. He sounded distracted.

"How much would you sell your body for, Shizuo?"

"What kind of question is _that?_"

"Answer me."

"I don't know. What is this for? Human experimentation? Or as a bodyguard?"

"You know what I mean."

"What? Fine, you tell me first, then. What would you sell your body for?"

Izaya laughed, but the pain in his laughter was like a knife in Shizuo's ribs. "I wouldn't even ask for money," he said, and covered his eyes with his arm, but he couldn't hide the bleakness in his voice. "I'd just ask for a roof over my head. I'm pretty cheap, apparently."

Shizuo went so silent and still that it was like his heart had stopped. He realized, too late, what Izaya had meant.

"Have you -" his tongue tripped over the words. He couldn't get them out. "Did you ever -"

"Some guy came up to me on the street a few nights ago," Izaya said right over him. He sounded calm, but he didn't pull his arm away from his face. "He said I could make a lot of money selling my body, enough to get me out of this city, to go wherever I wanted."

"Do you know who he was?" Shizuo asked, his blood roaring in his ears. He had never killed anyone before, but he didn't think it could be too hard.

"There are dozens of people like him," Izaya said. "They're mostly human traffickers, and they target kids who won't be missed if they get kidnapped out of the country. It didn't mean anything, it's just a common question they ask, to find out which kids are vulnerable."

Shizuo got up and went over to Izaya, pulling away his arm from his face. To his surprise, Izaya didn't look upset or as if he was on the verge of tears. He looked up at Shizuo, his face serious and unreadable.

"You probably shouldn't stay here so late," Shizuo said gently. "It's too dangerous to walk around here at night." He would have offered to stay with Izaya, to walk him home from now on, but he wasn't sure how Izaya would take it.

_You're too eye-catching to be walking alone at night_, he thought, losing his attention to the delicate features of Izaya's face. He could be considered as pretty as any girl, even from an objective viewpoint, with that clear skin and those breathtaking eyes. Anyone would want to own him.

"But that's the thing, isn't it?" Izaya said, not really hearing him. He was looking off into the distance, thinking. "I'm not even close to the kind of kid they're looking for. I don't need the money, and I don't want to leave this city."

Shizuo relaxed a little.

"But I still ended up talking to him for hours afterwards."

Shizuo's head spun, and not just from the alcohol. "_Why?_"

"Because I found it interesting," the words had the sound of a confession to it. Izaya glanced at him, and then away just as quickly. "I wanted to know everything about it. There's this whole chain of supply and demand, hidden from sight, with employers and employees and contracts and _everything_. There's probably more money flowing in the black market in Ikebukuro than in the regular economy. It's like they're feeding on a dying city, and selling off pieces of it at a time."

Shizuo gave up trying to think while his head was still spinning. He pushed Izaya over and laid down himself, so that they were facing each other. He discovered that this way, their faces were only inches apart, and Izaya's eyes were somber and searching on his face.

"What kind of person do you think that makes me?" Izaya asked quietly.

Shizuo wanted to reach out to touch the strands of dark hair falling over Izaya's eyes. He shivered with the realization at how close he had come to giving himself away.

"I'm not going to pretend that it isn't creepy," Shizuo said. He kept his hands to himself. "But I don't think that makes you a bad person. Too curious for your own good, maybe, and - "

\- the image of Izaya looking down at the school, godlike and distant, observing each student as a chess piece on a playing board -

"As long as you don't hurt anybody, it's fine," Shizuo finished, then realized that he had actually reached out a little. His fingers were inches away from Izaya's hair. He pulled them back, curled them into a fist, and very nearly shoved them into his sides in an effort to keep them from betraying him any further.

Izaya reached out, slowly, and trailed his fingers along Shizuo's arm. They raised goosebumps wherever they touched, and Shizuo fought with everything he had to remain as still as possible.

"Okay," Izaya said softly. "I won't hurt anybody. I promise."

_Except for me_, Shizuo thought. _You can always hurt me._


	10. The Pivot Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(In some ways, it had all been that man’s fault. Shizuo had never even found out his name. If he hadn’t shown up, nothing would have changed. If he hadn’t shown up, none of this would have happened.)_

Shizuo caught sight of the man well before he had made it over the fence.

He stopped and stared. Nobody ever came near the fences around the lot behind the school. It wasn't easily accessible by the main road, only by a small side road that no one ever used. In all of his time here, Shizuo had never seen anyone actually try to climb that fence.

The man was incredibly clumsy, too frail to manage the tricky footing well. His movements were erratic and he struggled to keep himself from falling off, but he was slowly climbing over.

Shizuo had never understood until now the pure defensive anger that he sometimes saw on the delinquents' faces. He felt it now, pure and simple, an instinctive territorial urge shivered through him and said: _he's an intruder, a stranger, and whatever he is, he's not welcome here_.

He was furious before he even reached the man, grabbing the chain link fence and shaking it. "_Hey!_" The tone of his voice should have been enough of a warning to stay away. "_What are you doing?_"

"_Help me,_" the man gasped. He was sweating through his threadbare suit, and he looked terrified out of his mind. "I'm being chased. They're going to kill me. _Please_."

For a moment, Shizuo was at war with himself. He didn't want to help this greasy looking man, with his strange movements and unwelcome presence. But he also didn't want to see the man get killed right in front of him.

"Who's chasing after you?" He asked instead. He didn't stop the man when he finally managed to clamber over, landing with a thump on his two feet.

The man swayed unsteadily and began to stumble toward the warehouse without answering.

"_Hey,_" the anger returned. Shizuo caught him by his collar. The man was actually a little shorter than him, and he was stopped easily.

The man struggled violently, trying to get out of his grip. Shizuo only dragged him back a few inches. "_Answer me_," he said.

He didn't want to think of this man, this _stranger, _entering his warehouse just for the asking. He didn't even know the man's name, and he wanted no part of the trouble that he brought with him. In fact, Shizuo was beginning to think the man wasn't completely sane. Izaya was probably already in the warehouse and would be surprised by the sudden intrusion. Shizuo's grip tightened, and he nearly pulled the man off of his feet in order to keep him from slipping away.

"_Let go of me,_" the man snarled at him. He lifted his arm to strike, but the motion dislodged something under his coat. A heavy plastic bag fell to the ground, bursting open and spilling its red powdery contents into the air. The man's face twisted in fury and despair. The string of curses that burst out of him shocked Shizuo with their vulgarity. He let go, a little unintentionally, trying to get away from the mess.

The man didn't run back to the warehouse immediately. Instead, he dropped to his knees, scooped as much of the contents of the plastic bag back into its container as he could, all the while muttering about how Shizuo would pay. Only then did he turn to run, only to be met with a kick to the face.

He dropped to the ground, clutching his broken nose, screaming incoherently.

Izaya lowered his foot slowly, not looking sorry in the least about kicking a complete stranger.

"I was wondering what the commotion was all about," he said to Shizuo. The warehouse doors clicked shut behind him. "But I think I can guess what happened."

"Do you know him?" Shizuo demanded. "He said he was being chased by people that were going to kill him."

Izaya had caught sight of the traces of red powder on the ground. He stiffened immediately, recognizing it. "Shizuo," he said sharply. "Get away from there. Those are drugs."

Shizuo moved away from the mess on the ground, and rounded over it to stand next to Izaya, but not too close in case some traces were still on him. He had gotten a faceful in the struggle, and now he started to hold his breath even though it was too late.

Izaya was looking at the man in the ground, curled over the bag, hiding it with his body. "He probably stole them recently, only to get caught."

The man reached out pathetically. "_I was told you would help,_" he managed through his broken nose. It sounded like a wail of a complaint.

Izaya ignored him. "Let's go," he said to Shizuo. "Leave him. Even if we hide him now, the people he stole from will find him sooner or later. We shouldn't get involved."

"Wait_,_" the man pleaded. Shizuo picked him up by the back of his collar.

"_Don't come back,_" he said, putting all of his territorial fury into his words. He tossed the man over the fence, the splaying weight of his limbs making it an awkward throw.

The man landed on the other side, unmoving. Shizuo found it hard to feel sorry for him.

Izaya turned to look at him, amused. "Are you okay?"

Shizuo felt like taking a shower. He could still feel the red powder on his skin, and it made him shiver.

"What the fuck was that," he muttered, trying to scrub the feeling away, rubbing his arms. Izaya stepped toward him, reaching out. Shizuo backed away instantly.

Izaya's hands dropped to his sides. After a moment, he asked: "Did you get any on you?"

"Yeah," Shizuo turned back to the school. "I'll go wash it off. Don't touch that," he added, at the spill of red powder making patterns on the ground. "I'll be back in a bit."

Izaya watched him go, silent and expressionless.

.

The bathrooms were empty and deserted since school had ended a while ago. Shizuo was unreasonably grateful for the clean white walls and the quiet, only disturbed by the running water and the sound of his movements. The water ran pink as the powder washed off of his hands and arms. They hadn't been visible outside, but now that Shizuo looked intently, he could see a fine coating of it running all the way up the arm he had used to grab the man. Some of it had probably been caught on his shirtsleeves as well.

He stripped off his shirt, welcoming the feeling of cool air against his skin, hoping that no one would come in. He wasn't sure how he would be able to explain the fact that he was trying to wash drugs out of his shirt. Honestly, given his reputation, he would probably be expelled on the spot.

_What has my life become? _He wondered. He was certain that normal high schoolers didn't have strange men running into them, begging to be saved from death. Normal high schoolers didn't have containers of drugs exploding in their face. Normal high schoolers wouldn't have anything to do with the world he seemed to be in, one where strange and unexplainable things happened so often. It couldn't just be due to his unnatural strength. He had always had unnatural strength, all through middle school and high school. But all of this madness had only started recently.

With a shiver, Shizuo realized that normal high schoolers usually didn't spend all their time with Izaya Orihara, but he had started to, recently.

The water that he splashed on his face was cold and soothing, but Shizuo still couldn't stop a warm flush from running through his entire body. He leaned heavily over the sink.

He couldn't stop hanging around Izaya. Even if the alternative was living a calm, peaceful life, he wasn't sure he would be able to stay away. 

He ended up splashing more water over his face, trying to cool himself down. If just the thought of Izaya had him this warm, he was definitely done for.

It wasn't like they didn't have a chance together, he told himself. There might be a chance that Izaya liked him back. He certainly seemed comfortable enough giving him hugs, seemed to enjoy Shizuo's company even when Shizuo was silent and sullen.

Shizuo remembered the long hug they had shared by the warehouse, neither of them moving away, leaning into each other for comfort. He had wanted so badly for that to go on forever.

With a shock, Shizuo realized that his skin was burning up as if he had a fever. His heart was pounding as if he had been sprinting, even though he hadn't even moved in the last few moments. He turned on the water again, trying to cool down. He found himself suddenly covered in sweat, but it barely did anything to lower his body temperature.

Alarmed, he stuck his head under the running water. His breathing was coming fast like he couldn't get enough air. He felt the cool air in the bathroom as a sharp contrast to the pleasurable heat burning under his skin. He felt too dizzy to focus, couldn't stand up straight.

Suddenly, all he could think about was how cool Izaya's skin would feel under his fingertips, how much he had wanted to kiss him, to claim him as something more than a friend.

The fire in his veins flared with heat, just like the anger that he was so used to, but completely different. It felt like arousal, but a hundred times more insistent, coming on a hundred times more suddenly. Distantly, Shizuo wondered if this was one of the drug's effects.

He wondered if he could make the sudden arousal go away by giving in just like he had so many times before, by bringing himself to a release, only to wake up cold and empty and alone.

He didn't have long to weigh the merits of his plan. The heat was going to his head, making it difficult to think.

He stumbled over into one of the empty stalls, trying to keep as quiet as he could, horrified with himself. He had never done anything like this before, not outside of the privacy of his own room. But the heat pounded insistently under his skin, and he needed to find some way, any way, to cool down.

He leaned against the door, his heart slamming against his ribcage. He felt as if a weight were crushing him to the floor. His hands trembled as he locked the door behind him, slipped against the lock with his fingers still dripping with either water or sweat, he didn't know. A sharp spike of heat drove into him, making him press his hands hard against the rough grey plastic, and he fought back a groan.

His vision blurred. Without wanting to, without intending to at all, Shizuo's mind automatically went to the memory of Izaya leaning into him, conjured up an image of Izaya with him, pinned between him and the door of the stall.

It was a familiar image, a familiar fantasy. Only this time, he didn't have to linger over the details, didn't have to spend time coming up with stupid scenarios that would lead to the moment. Just the thought was enough to send him into a mad spiral of arousal.

He was hard before he even knew what he was doing, was jerking himself off, trying to muffle the sounds he made against his arm. He felt dirty and so ashamed that he wanted to die, but that was nothing compared to how much he wanted more friction, wanted to imagine Izaya's body underneath his, solid and tangible, wanted to imagine Izaya's fingers running through his hair, what their kisses would taste like, what his insides would feel like.

He usually tried to keep his fantasies about his partner faceless. Usually, he could just lose himself in the simple appreciation of friction against his skin, and the details crept in only occasionally. But this time, he was still on the school grounds. Izaya was probably still in the warehouse, lying on his back and reading a book, or looking through his phone, relaxed and sleepy in the warmth of the afternoon. He was only minutes away at most, and if Shizuo saw him now, saw the graceful lines of his wrist, the soft relaxation of his body against the couch, Shizuo wasn't sure if he would be able to stand it.

Something, some monster inside of Shizuo that he hadn't been aware of until now, came to life at the thought of going to Izaya right now.

He could pretend not to remember anything after it was over. He could pin Izaya against those soft cushions, could ignore his pleas and his struggling, could kiss him until his protests were replaced by gasps. He could make Izaya take responsibility for the dangerous mess his life had become, for introducing him into the world where drug dealers and thieves and killers existed. He wouldn't mind living in that world, no matter how much senseless destruction he caused, no matter how much violence he was forced to commit, not if the reward was the warmth in Izaya's eyes when he looked at Shizuo, not if it meant that they could be doomed to that hell together.

He could imagine it in excruciating detail, a string of hazy days spent with Izaya, amidst blood and violence and sex, falling irrevocably deeper into a life of sin and depravity. He could feel Izaya's fingers raking into the skin on his back, could hear the ragged edge of his breathing as Shizuo fucked into him, left a pattern of bruises along Izaya's neck, along his collarbone. His longing for Izaya had always seemed to fit in perfectly with the taste of blood on his tongue and the destruction his touch left behind. It would make perfect sense for Shizuo to turn to him after a fight, to run blood-stained fingers into his hair, to kiss him on the open street, to claim him in the shadows of alleyways.

Like this, lost in the maze of his twisted imagination, Shizuo eventually stopped thinking at all. His body seized with heat, and even as shame and guilt tore through him, he muffled the sounds coming from his throat and endured the wracking ecstasy of his release.

Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the tiled floor. His vision was still blurry with heat, but it was getting clearer now. His hands were sticky and wet, but he had managed to avoid getting most of it on his clothes. His shirt was still outside, next to the sink, drying out from when he had tried to wash it earlier. For a brief, blessed moment, the burning under his skin was gone, replaced by numb exhaustion.

As his vision cleared, Shizuo stared numbly at the wreckage he had caused, the shattered porcelain, the ruined door, the twisted metal. Water spilled onto the floor, making a puddle that slanted toward one corner. His hands had warped the plastic door, had left twisted imprints on it. The eerie silence in the bathroom was broken up by the drip of water.

Then, to his horror, he discovered that instead of going away, the heat had just turned into pain. He felt as if the insides of his veins had been burned to a crisp, black and scarred, and now screaming with any slight movement that he made.

He waited, breathing hard, feeling more terrified than he ever had been in his entire life. But the feeling didn't fade. Instead, it just got worse.

He tried to ignore it, washing the slick off of his hands, trying to drink enough water to wash away the pain, but nothing seemed to work. Just when the edge of his breathing started veering toward panic, he heard the rumbling roll of the janitor pushing his cart down the hallway. The janitor was coming toward the bathroom to clean it, no doubt, and would find an impossible scene.

Shizuo grabbed his shirt, looked one last time at the destruction he had caused, searing the image into his memory, and then fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna post once every two days and if I stop you have permission to fucking yell at me, because this fic is done, it's been done for a while, and I've just been too fucking stupid about it. If it changes later, it changes later. *throws something at the wall.


	11. The Rooftop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(The truth was, he didn’t remember clearly what happened next.)_

The rooftops of Raijin high school were locked after school hours, but there was still a way up and down if you were okay with a little bit of climbing, and didn't fear heights. Izaya had shown the way to him once before. Shizuo went there instead of returning to the warehouse, desperate for a place to be truly alone.

His adrenaline had given him enough strength to make it up to the roof. It still roared like a furnace in his veins, but it had come at the cost of making the pain worse. At the top, he had more or less collapsed against a wall. The weakness in his limbs and the searing pain had caused his body to lock up completely. He curled up painfully, trying to endure it, but he had never experienced something like this before. It was different than the broken bones and torn muscles he was used to from his childhood.

Everything hurt too much to move. His vision clouded over, and with a shock, he realized that he couldn't even breathe.

A pair of shoes swam into his vision, belonging to a dark figure silhouetted by the sun. Shizuo knew who it was without having to look up, which was just as well. He felt like he was in the middle of a dream, or a nightmare, one where he couldn't move his limbs, but knew exactly what was happening anyway.

"Shizuo," Izaya's voice was like the drink of ice-cold water that Shizuo had been craving all this time, slaking the heat in his blood like nothing else had. Shizuo didn't even care about what he looked like, he just shuddered at the sound of that voice. "What's going on?"

"_Izaya_," his voice gave him away, even if his appearance hadn't already. "_Help me._"

There was a moment of silence as Izaya sat down across from him. Shizuo didn't dare look at his face, at the realization that must be there. He tried to look away, tried to hide his flushed face and the agony in his veins. He didn't want Izaya to see him in such a pathetic state.

After what seemed like forever, Izaya came forward, on his hands and knees, lifting up a hand to touch the side of Shizuo's face. Shizuo jerked away as if he had been burned. The physical contact ran through him like electricity, like he had been free for a split second before being bound up again. _God_, he wanted that touch again, would do anything for it. Izaya was looking at him now, but without the mockery or disdain that Shizuo feared. He just looked at Shizuo. The understanding in his eyes was devastating.

"I can't help you if you won't let me touch you," he said gently, unexpectedly. Shizuo hated that reasonable tone of voice. He hated how calm Izaya was when his own thoughts were spiraling into madness.

"_It's your fault_," he couldn't help but sound bitter. He hated what he had become, hated the way his blood spiked with desire. It hurt like a thousand needles, carving him open from the inside. It _hurt_, everything hurt, and it was all Izaya's fault.

He was answered with the cool press of Izaya's hands against his skin, unlocking his joints, making him gasp. He needed the air, needed more contact, _needed_ -

Izaya was on top of him in an instant, in between his knees, pushing open his legs. Shizuo's body flared with helpless heat. 

"_Izaya,_" he said desperately. He couldn't tell if he was in a dream or a nightmare, but either way, there was only one thing wanted, only one thing he was afraid of.

"I've got you," Izaya replied. He settled in against Shizuo's chest. His fingers were on the buttons of Shizuo's pants, shifting the clothing away from his heated skin. "It's okay, I got you. You'll be okay."

"Don't," Shizuo said, agonized. A sharp spike of arousal had hit him at the sensation of Izaya's fingers, even stronger than anything he had felt before. He remembered the twisted door of the bathroom stall, the shattered porcelain. But he couldn't move away, couldn't move closer. He was completely at Izaya's mercy. "You don't have to do this."

"It's not a big deal," Izaya said easily. He wrapped his fingers around Shizuo's cock, and Shizuo knew for sure that this must be real - he would never have been able to imagine the feeling that went through him just then. Izaya's hand started to move, experienced and sure, drawing all of the heat in Shizuo's veins into a single point.

"_Please_," he couldn't think. He wasn't sure what he was even asking for.

Izaya settled an arm around his shoulders, pulled himself closer. He was looking down at the space in between their bodies, and his voice was resonant with certainty. "It's okay. I'm just helping a friend out."

Shizuo was sure that, if he hadn't been locked to stillness, he would be running his hands across Izaya's skin, would be pulling him in for a kiss. Now though, all he could do was try to muffle his moans, to try and endure the sharp jolts of pleasure that ran through him every time Izaya's wrist moved. He found himself captivated by the part of Izaya's lips, the pale pink color, soft and inviting, the angle of his jaw, the fall of his hair, the length of his eyelashes; they trembled slightly as Izaya looked down, not meeting his eyes. His vision blurred as another jolt of pleasure went through him, seeming to fill his entire body with electricity for a moment before it went to the area where Izaya's hands were.

"Don't worry," Izaya was saying. "I'll take care of you. I've got you."

Shizuo barely heard him. He was gasping, lost in the white heat that consumed him.

When it was over, Izaya leaned against him, warm and real and everything Shizuo ever wanted. He sounded slightly breathless. "Better?" He asked.

The numbness receded, and this time it left nothing but slight pinpricks of pain behind. The sound Shizuo made in answer said something along the lines of _a little, but it still hurts_. He could bear it though. He was pretty sure that after resting for a few more minutes, he would be able to move.

"Good," Izaya laughed, a strangely shaky sound. He pulled back to look at Shizuo. "I was worried for a moment there."

Shizuo stared at Izaya, at his delicate features, untouched by any signs of embarrassment or disgust, and his chest ached on appreciation so strong that he thought it would burst.

"Thank you," he said.

Izaya seemed to freeze solid. His body went as stiff as a board, and the look in eyes became so brittle, so fragile that something inside him seemed to shatter before Shizuo's eyes. Shizuo's heart followed suit.

Izaya stood up, was out of his grasp before he could take another breath. "No problem," he said. His smile was unusually sharp and cynical. "It was partly my fault that you got yourself into this situation. I had to take responsibility."

Shizuo wished desperately that he understood what had just happened. "No," he said, wanting to take back whatever he had just said or done to put that expression on Izaya's face. "It's not that. I -"

"I'll be right back," Izaya said abruptly. He strode toward the edge of the roof, purposeful, too fast to stop. For a moment, he just stood there, looking down into the distance, hands curled into loose fists at his sides. Then, he dropped down, out of sight.

.

For a long time, Shizuo just stared emptily up at the sky, finding the cool blue color soothing. His head was beginning to clear, and he felt as if he were waking up from a long trance, or a long dream. He could find no trace of Izaya's presence, other than the slowly cooling heat in his veins.

He wondered if he had just imagined it all. He must have. This is what he got, for fantasizing about his best friend in an empty bathroom stall, for his mind going to places where no mind should go. He deserved this painful bitterness, this guilt, and loneliness, not the cool salvation of Izaya's hands around him.

Eventually, he found himself able to move. He got up slowly, painfully, adjusting his messed up clothes with stiff fingers and aching muscles. He suddenly felt too cold.

When Shizuo had struggled back down from the roof, he was shocked to see that the sun was still high in the sky. He felt as if an entire week had passed, on that roof, caught in between pleasure and pain. He went alone to the warehouse, feeling dizzy from the sense of deja vu from earlier in the day. He felt as if time had suddenly reset to early afternoon, right after classes had let out. The encounter with the man and the drugs, the wreckage of the bathroom, what he did with Izaya on the roof, it all felt like a dream that he was waking up from.

He pushed open the doors, and the first thing he saw was Izaya curled up on his usual sofa, deep in thought, staring at his phone. His head spun. Had it been real, or had it been a dream?

"Izaya," he said unsteadily. Izaya was on his feet already, coming toward him with open concern on his face.

The gentle look on his face, not the strange, pained expression he had on the roof was so welcome that Shizuo felt all of his anxiety disappear for an instant, replaced by pure relief.

"Shizuo," Izaya came to stand in front of him, placing cool fingers on his forehead, his cheeks. They chased away the last vestiges of pain wherever they touched. "Hey there. Are you okay?"

Shizuo stared at him, wondering how he could ask: _Did you just give me a handjob on the roof? I can't be sure if it was a dream or not. I can't remember it all. What did I say to make you look like that? What did I do?_

"I'm fine," he answered finally. He didn't want to remind Izaya of what had hurt him so much.

When Izaya pulled back, there was a thoughtful frown on his face. "This isn't good," he said. "Do you remember how much got on you? Enough for one or two pills?"

"At least five," Shizuo answered, remembering the water turning pink as it ran off of his skin. That much, he could remember clearly. "Do you know what it was?"

"I'm not sure," Izaya said grimly. He looked down in thought. "But I'll find out, or I'll ask one of my friends to take a look."

He returned his attention to Shizuo. "Do you want to stay here tonight? You can tell your parents that I invited you over for dinner. I don't want you to have a delayed reaction later. We don't know what you were exposed to yet."

Shizuo remembered the unbearable heat that had taken over him so suddenly in the bathroom and nodded wordlessly. "I'll have to sleep in these clothes, but there's no helping it."

Izaya was moving away, picking up a white envelope from where he had been on the couch. "I can go home and get you an extra set of clothes if you want. I need to head out anyway."

"Where are you going?" Shizuo asked, alarmed.

Izaya didn't meet his eyes. He just stuffed the envelope into his pockets. "I need to take my sisters back home."

"When are you coming back?"

Izaya came back to brush his fingers against Shizuo's forehead again. "As soon as I can," he answered seriously. A bit of tension eased from Shizuo's shoulders.

.

He made a quick call to his parents. He made up a few lies, telling them what food the Orihara's were making, what their place looked like. Luckily, his parents were so pleased that a friend had invited him over that they didn't seem suspicious at all of his lies. Shizuo hung up, feeling both guilty and relieved. He didn't know how they would react if they knew the truth, that he had gotten exposed to some unknown drug, and was sleeping it off in an abandoned warehouse behind the school.

A shard of panic ran through him. Shit, his life had really gotten dangerous ever since he had gotten involved with Izaya. He hoped that there wouldn't be any long-term effects. He didn't need to become a drug addict on top of having inhuman strength. He was already having trouble controlling his strength just by himself. The combination would be devastating.

_Is it still worth it? _He wondered. _To stay around Izaya? Even if I ended up like that, would I still want to be with him?_

The answer made him shiver.

.

When Izaya came back, the sun was setting outside. His face was barely visible in the darkness but became clearer as he came closer to Shizuo.

"Hey Izaya," Shizuo said a little sleepily. He had been lying down on the couch, staring up into the steel beams overhead.

"Hey Shizuo. Have you felt anything else?"

"No," Shizuo wondered why Izaya kept putting his hands on his face. It kept making him hope for more.

Izaya sat next to him, pulled out an extra set of clothes, towels, some convenience-store bought rice balls, a ridiculous number of water bottles, and some bottles of painkillers. "Eat," he said tersely. "I'll give you a painkiller afterwards. From what I know, they should help. There shouldn't be any bad side effects, but just take one for now."

Shizuo accepted the food readily. He had been getting hungry and had completely forgotten to ask Izaya for food. He felt ridiculously taken care of. With a start, he realized that Izaya was fussing over him. The thought made him laugh out loud.

Izaya shot him an incredulous look. "What?" He asked flatly.

"Nothing," Shizuo busied himself with unwrapping his food and eating it. He couldn't keep from smiling though. _You'd make a good housewife_, he thought about saying. But the thought of Izaya in a kitchen, wearing an apron and carrying a spatula just made him laugh out loud again. Izaya was anything but domestic. In his head, he replaced the spatula with a kitchen knife, sharp and gleaming. The image just made him laugh even harder.

Izaya stood up. There was tension written into the line of his shoulders, in the fixed curl of his fingers. Shizuo sobered up immediately.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I'm just feeling a little loopy right now. Thank you for bringing me food. I had totally forgotten about that."

Izaya went over to the windowsill and pulled down the heavy blankets that laid there. He carried them over to the couch, deposited them all in a heap on one end. Shizuo blinked up at him.

"It's still warm," he said. "I don't think I'll need these."

"The temperature drops a lot overnight," Izaya said. "Just take one, if you want. I'll use the rest."

Shizuo's heart dropped. He struggled to figure out why.

Reluctantly, he realized that he had been expecting them to sleep together on the couch. He had imagined laying down beside Izaya, pulling the other into his embrace. He had wondered would it would feel like, to have Izaya's back warm and solid against his chest, imagined the feel of skin underneath his fingers.

"Wait," he said, and racked his brains for the right words, the magic combination of phrases, the perfect argument that would convince Izaya to do what Shizuo wanted. "What about you? Won't you get cold?"

"I'm not the one suffering from unknown drug side effects," Izaya replied dryly. "I'll manage."

He took all but one blanket and pushed the pile back onto the windowsill in a heap. Shizuo watched him, growing strangely desperate. At last, he couldn't take it anymore.

"Come here," he demanded, making some space on the couch. Izaya turned to look at him, but Shizuo didn't repeat the command. He just intensified the glare. If he was ignored, he _would _go over and drag Izaya over.

After a moment, however, Izaya came over to him himself.

"Are you okay with this?" He asked hesitantly.

"Yes," Shizuo tried to keep the impatience and desire out of his voice. "I'm not letting you sleep on the ground, not when you're taking care of me. The couch is big enough. We'll manage."

Izaya sat down on the couch, and for a breathless moment, Shizuo barely restrained himself from dragging the other's body on top of him. Izaya laid down gently, facing away from him, leaving an inch of space in between their bodies. After a moment, Shizuo laid down as well. He could feel the shift of Izaya's breathing, the effect of the even rise and fall of his chest on the cushions underneath them.

The skylights darkened slowly, plunging them into darkness. Shizuo forced his hands to be still, forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He wanted more than anything to reach out and hold Izaya in his arms, but it felt wrong to do so without his permission.

A long time passed this way, with Shizuo at war with himself, too conflicted to fall asleep. At last, though, the exhaustion from the day overwhelmed him. He told himself to be grateful. A few days ago, he would have been over the moon with joy at being able to be this close to Izaya. He had no right to want more. That was his last thought before sleep came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck i almost forgot


	12. Akrasia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(He should have stopped there. It never should have gone any further. What happened next was completely his fault. Shizuo would admit to that, if nothing else: The next decision had been his, and his alone.)_

Shizuo woke up with Izaya's weight on top of him, his head on Shizuo's chest, his limbs relaxed and loose. Their legs were tangled together. They had somehow gotten squished together during the night, but neither had moved away. Shizuo was suddenly intensely aware of the inside of Izaya's thigh pressed in between his legs, the angle of his wrist lying across Shizuo's shoulder. The fingers of his left hand were curled loosely next to Shizuo's cheek.

He went breathless with appreciation. How much of the night had they spent together, lying in this position? He wanted to wake up like this every morning, wanted to go to sleep every night with Izaya this close to him. He felt sated and satisfied and calm in a manner that he could never remember feeling. It felt as if the senseless violence and shuddering adrenaline of yesterday was a thing of the past, an unfortunate part of youth, of growing up. But now he felt like an adult, steady and calm and certain in his future. He loved Izaya Orihara, loved his mercurial moods and clever words, loved the pale of his skin and the red of his eyes. He would do anything to be with him.

Gently, as gently as he knew how, Shizuo brought his hand up and settled it around Izaya's waist. His fingers slid underneath Izaya's shirt, touched the skin on his back, right above his hip. Izaya was warm and soft to the touch, and Shizuo couldn't resist reaching further, pressing his palm against the planes of Izaya's back.

Izaya made a soft sound, Shizuo wasn't sure if it was a complaint or just a sound made by moving. His hands froze. He had never heard anything so vulnerable coming out from Izaya before. In an instant, Shizuo was so warm that he felt as if his skin had burst into flames. He wanted to touch more of Izaya's skin, wanted to hear more of those sounds.

He gritted his teeth, coming back to his senses, but it was too late. It seemed as if all the blood in his body had gone straight to his cock at the sound that Izaya made. Trapped by the layers of clothing and the weight of Izaya's thigh on top of him, it was so intense that Shizuo couldn't stop himself from making a muffled sound of pain.

Izaya woke up. His eyes on Shizuo were wide with alarm and concern. He became aware of their situation immediately.

"Is it back?" No one's voice should sound that sexy right after waking up. Shizuo felt another surge of arousal, impossible to stop. But Izaya was still waiting for him to answer, so he just nodded wordlessly, even though he wasn't sure what Izaya was asking. He felt feverishly warm. He wasn't sure what the cause was - if it was still a side effect of the drugs, or just from waking up with Izaya on top of him.

"Shit," Izaya didn't move away, didn't jerk away from him or try to get up. He just looked down at Shizuo, his weight bearing them both down into the cushions beneath them, thinking. "Do you want me to leave?"

Shizuo closed his eyes as he was forced to tell the truth. He struggled to get the words out, even when all he wanted to do was bring Izaya's face down for a kiss, to rock up his hips into the warmth of the other's body. "It...it doesn't help when I try to do it myself. Or at least, the last time I did it, it just hurt more afterward."

Izaya nodded, accepting his explanation. "Okay then," he said, sounding as if they were talking about how to split the check instead of how to get Shizuo off. "Since you can move, I'd rather let you do all the work. I'd rather not use my wrist right now."

Alarm shot through Shizuo. "What's wrong with your wrist?"

"Nothing. I'm just kinda tired," Izaya gave Shizuo a small smile. "Plus I don't really mind. Or do you have a problem with it?"

Shizuo stared at him, wishing desperately for the right answer. He wanted it more than anything, but for some reason that made it feel like the wrong thing to do.

Before he could say anything, Izaya shifted to get up, and his knee pressed in between Shizuo's legs. Shizuo curled around that sensation with a shocked gasp, and his vision blurred with the force of the arousal that shot through him.

"We clearly don't have much of a choice here," Izaya said, a little jokingly. He got up completely, searching for something in his bag. He came back, stripping off his shirt and pants, holding a condom. He threw it to Shizuo, who was still struggling to force his thoughts into coherence. The sight of Izaya's undressing did absolutely nothing to help.

"I don't want to hurt you," Shizuo said finally. That felt like the most important thing. Nothing else made sense to him right now - why Izaya was acting so casual about this, why he suddenly felt like saying the wrong thing would drive Izaya away.

Instead of answering, Izaya put his arms around Shizuo's neck. Without thinking, Shizuo caught him around the waist. They fell down together.

Izaya's body was warm underneath him, drawing him in until all he wanted to do was to press himself against that smooth expanse of skin. For a moment, Shizuo hesitated, wanting to be sure. He met Izaya's eyes, dark and red, lost himself in that mesmerizing gaze. "Tell me if you need me to stop," he said. 

Izaya's grin was sharp and cynical. "We'll see what happens. It's an experiment, Shizuo. I've already volunteered my body for it, it's a little too late to back out now."

Shizuo ignored the spike that drove into his heart. "Are you sure?" he asked a final time.

Again, instead of answering, Izaya started unbuttoning Shizuo's shirt. Shizuo let him, before remembering that something was wrong with Izaya's wrist. He pushed away Izaya's hands gently, undid the rest of his buttons himself. He pulled off his shirt and sat up to work on the buttons of his pants, on tearing open the tin foil packet and reading the instructions on it.

Izaya had an arm thrown over his eyes. He looked as if he had been sleeping, shirtless, on the couch. Shizuo pushed off his pants, forgot them as soon as they dropped on the floor. He was still painfully hard, just from the sight of Izaya underneath him. He tried to be gentle, running his hands across Izaya's skin, brushing his thumbs over his nipples. He wanted to drop kisses on Izaya's skin, wanted to taste every part of him, but Izaya flinched slightly. Shizuo harshly reminded himself to stop being greedy.

He removed the rest of their clothes and was struck breathless again by the elegant lines of Izaya's body beneath him. He wanted to press his hands against the inside of Izaya's thighs, wanted to stroke his hands over Izaya's cock and bring him to a release. He looked up, tried to gauge Izaya's comfort level, but Izaya was biting his lip, still covering his face with his arm.

"Izaya," Shizuo's heart was hammering so hard in his chest that he could barely get the words out. He didn't know if he could stop now, he was holding himself back with every last ounce of strength he had. "Look at me, please."

Izaya drew in a deep breath. When he removed his arm, he had a determined look on his face, set and stubborn, bracing against some unknown expectation. He reached out with his other hand, lined up Shizuo's cock with his entrance. The shift of his hips made Shizuo dizzy. He suddenly felt the rush of blood roaring in his ears, caused by the anticipation of finally, _finally _getting to this point.

"Ready?" He asked, even though he was already starting to move.

Silently, Izaya nodded and then did something with his hips that forced Shizuo deeper inside him. The sensation blasted all of Shizuo's restraint to pieces, destroyed it utterly and completely.

Shizuo's first thrust went in all the way. They both cried out, not expecting it. The sound of Izaya's voice was everything Shizuo had imagined and more. He was addicted to it instantly, needed it more than air, more than anything.

He tried to wait, tried to let Izaya adjust to the sudden intrusion, but Izaya was still moaning under him helplessly. Shizuo couldn't get enough of it. He pressed his face into Izaya's shoulder, groaned wildly into his skin. He lost all of his sight and hearing for a long time as the warmth enveloped him, scattered his thoughts and set off fireworks in his blood. He was overwhelmed by the feel of Izaya's skin, soft and silky under his fingertips, the way Izaya's body gave way easily under the pressure of Shizuo's cock.

He moved his hips experimentally, discovered the shocking pleasure of friction between their bodies. It drove him insane. He chased after that, pressing his hands into Izaya's skin to hold him still, driving his hips forward into the sweet grip of Izaya's body, into the open angle of his legs and the arch of his back.

When he came back to himself, Izaya was crying out: "_Stop, stop, please. Shizuo, I can't -_"

Shizuo felt a shudder run through him at the sound of Izaya's voice, breaking over his name, pleading, begging. He gripped Izaya's shoulders, wanting to hear more, wanting it to stop. He felt shame tear through him at the way he thrust forward once more, merciless, cutting off Izaya's voice into a sharp cry. Even as his body trembled with pleasure, Shizuo squeezed his eyes shut so that he wouldn't have to see the pain on Izaya's face, wouldn't have to face him as he spilled all of his reckless heat and impulsive desire into the soft of Izaya's body.

.

Time seemed to pass like honey through an hourglass, slow and hazy and filled with sweet satisfaction.

Shizuo felt so weak that he could hardly move. He knew that was trapping Izaya under him. He felt as if he should move, but something inside him knew, with unyielding certainty, that once he got up, this encounter was over. He wasn't ready for that, wasn't ready for the possibility of Izaya getting up and continuing his life as if nothing had changed.

He felt as if the world had grown larger somehow, as if the knowledge of what sex with Izaya was like, the experience, had made him aware of something completely new. His old life of school and family dinners and classwork and normal everyday life seemed incredibly far away.

Eventually, he realized that Izaya was biting at his shoulder, digging his teeth uselessly into the skin without leaving any marks. "Get off me," he said, once he had Shizuo's attention. He sounded cold and brittle, and it drove shards of ice into Shizuo's veins, shattered the hourglass of time in his head. "I need to clean up. We're going to be late for school."

Shizuo had expected warm smiles and kisses. With a shock, Shizuo realized that they hadn't kissed at all during sex. The realization made him sit up hastily, and all the guilt and confusion from earlier doubled.

Izaya got up, and started dressing hurriedly, but not before Shizuo caught sight of the state of his body.

He was covered in angry red marks, the beginnings of bruises that were sure to turn completely black. They ran across his shoulders, covered his sides and his hips. As he dressed, he favored his right hand, almost to the point of not being able to use it. Shizuo realized that it must have been sprained or worse, for at least the entire night.

Shizuo stared at him in speechless horror for what seemed like an eternity.

_I don't want to hurt you_, he had said. What a blatant lie that had been. He hadn't even thought about being gentle during sex.

"_Shit,_" the agony in his voice was unmistakable. Izaya barely glanced at him before buttoning up his shirt with one hand. "_Fuck, Izaya. I'm so sorry._"

"What for?" Izaya asked, casual, as if he didn't look like the victim of a crime right now.

Shizuo could barely get the words out. He felt as if someone had just stabbed him. He wanted to do it to himself. He wanted to go back in time and scream at himself to stop, to tear himself apart.

Izaya would never let him touch again, would never come within ten feet of him. No wonder Izaya was so pissed at him now. He had offered up his body to slake the unbearable agony in Shizuo's veins, but he surely hadn't signed up for _this_.

"I'm sorry for using you like that," he was desperate for a better apology, but this was all he could come up with right now. He couldn't even use the drug as an excuse. He had been careless with the one person he wanted the most, and now it was going to cost him everything. "Please, Izaya, I'm so sorry."

Izaya picked up his switchblade from his jacket with his sprained wrist and flung it at Shizuo so hard that it thudded into the couch beside his head, stuck into the fabric until only the hilt showed.

"Shut the fuck up," Izaya said, and there was cold fury in his voice. He didn't look at Shizuo, didn't look to see if his thrown blade had reached its mark or not. "It's just sex. People do it all the time. It's nothing special, and nothing to be sorry about."

He didn't wait for Shizuo to answer before leaving, but he didn't have to. Shizuo could have sat there, numb and speechless, for an hour, for eternity, listening to the quiver of the knife beside his head and he still wouldn't have come up with a response.

But he didn't.

Instead, he lost his temper, because that's what Shizuo always did.

"What the _fuck, _Izaya?" He was so angry that he could barely think. He stood up, thrumming with the potential for violence. "Why did you do that, then? Is this all just - _easy _for you to do?" _Why did you let me touch you? Why did you let me hurt you?_

"_Yes,_ it's easy for me," Izaya replied. There was a harshness to his reply, his words, that grated through Shizuo's skin and hurt more than knives ever could. "What, you think you're special? Please. Do you even know me?"

Shizuo reacted, like he always did, to pain.

"_Get the fuck out of my sight,_" he growled.

Izaya laughed at him, harsh and mocking. That was when Shizuo realized that _Izaya_ was angry too. Furious, even. He barely looked in Shizuo's direction.

"Get over yourself," he said. "God, you can be so _annoying _sometimes."

Shizuo ignored him, his stinging words and his bruise-ridden body. He pulled on his clothes and left without another word, without looking back.

Later, he would regret that moment, would replay it in his head over and over and over. He wondered what Izaya had looked like, what he would have seen, if he had looked. But he would never know.

.

After that, Izaya didn't show up to the warehouse for a month.

After his temper had cooled, and realization had set in, Shizuo nearly went mad from worry and guilt. He wanted to find Izaya, to apologize, even if the apology only made things worse. He wanted to promise to never lose his mind again, to never lose control like that. He wanted to swear, on his soul, that he would never give in to temptation like that again. He would make sure that Izaya never got hurt ever again.

But deep down, Shizuo knew it was all a lie.

Even though he hated himself for it, he couldn't stop remembering what it had been like - Izaya's voice breaking, the way Izaya's body had opened up for him, that paralyzing sweetness. He wasn't sure what he was more afraid of - that he had hurt Izaya, or that he would never be able to touch him again. Shizuo couldn't stop dreaming about it. He couldn't stop wanting it, even when his dreams turned into nightmares where moans of pleasure turned into screams of pain.

It was as if a demon had taken over his body, erasing every last trace of humanity and morality and common sense. Shizuo should have been spending time thinking about how to apologize, or trying to figure out what it was that he had done wrong. Instead, all he thought about was how he could convince Izaya to come back to him, with that smile on his lips and that offer in his eyes. He lost himself in endless, repeating fantasies, each more vivid and detailed than the last, now that he had something to base it on.

He woke up, almost every night, drenched in sweat and shaking with desire, tormented by the ghost of a smile or the shadow of cool fingers pressing against his skin. Then, the guilt would hit him, once he remembered what he had done.

It drove him crazy. He knew that this couldn't be normal, that he had to be going insane somehow. But he couldn't stop. He wasn't sure if it was an aftereffect from the red powder, or if he had just subconsciously blocked out the pain in Izaya's eyes afterward. He alternated between excruciating guilt and mindless arousal, until they fed into each other in an endless loop.

.

Shinra ended up being the one to finally give Shizuo the news - that Izaya was not at school because he was in the hospital. The full breakdown of injuries was this: a sprained wrist, bruises along his shoulders, back, and hips, two cracked ribs.

It felt as if Shinra had held back on giving him the full list, and Shizuo tore off the handle to the classroom door when he tried to slam it shut.

The next few days were absolute hell.

Shizuo destroyed everything in his room, frightening his parents out of their wits and driving Kasuka into hiding. Something on his face made every classroom he walked into fall deadly silent, and even Shinra stopped talking to him.

Only in the warehouse could he curl up and relax, something loosening painfully in his chest. He would lie down on the couch, too exhausted to think, too tired to do anything except sleep for long stretches of time, and wake up suddenly, panicked and guilty, at the slightest sound. He daydreamed about what he would do when he finally saw Izaya again, how he would apologize, how Izaya would react to his touch. He shut his eyes against the fact that he was alone, and waited for someone who never came.


	13. Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(Shizuo wondered: what would have happened if I hadn’t gone after him? To let him leave, to not chase after him after he ran away, to let him go. Wouldn’t that have been a way out?)_

He heard Izaya before he saw him, recognized that distinctive drawl and teasing tone before he could make out the words. Shizuo froze as he approached his classroom, too terrified to believe if this was true.

He opened the door, but realized too late that he had used too much force. The door shattered as he slid it open, shearing off of its hinges, crumpling where he held it.

It slid aside to reveal the entire classroom, silent and staring at him.

They had seen him break windows and destroy desks, had seen him snap pencils and pens and throw erasers with more force than he intended, but this was their classroom door. That was a new level.

Shizuo ignored all of their stares. He only had eyes for Izaya.

Izaya's voice had cut off at the shriek of bending metal and plastic, the loud crash of the door folding in on itself. Shizuo flinched at the sight of him, sitting at _his _desk, in _his _chair, arms folded in front of him as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the past month.

He had been talking to Shinra. The first thing he did when he got back from the hospital was to talk to _Shinra_, and not him. Not a single message. Not a single note to let him know what had happened, if he was okay. Not a thing. And now he just showed up, out of the blue.

He had always known, on some level, that for all the time he and Izaya spent together, they had never _truly_ been friends. There had always been something between them, some wariness, some on Shizuo's part, and some on Izaya's. But confronting it now was more than he could bear.

He stared at Izaya, across the room, and the more he looked, the angrier he got. All the air in the room seemed to go still as the entire classroom waited for him to blow up.

The silence was broken by Izaya.

"Yeah," Izaya said to Shinra, cheerful and fake. "Looks like I can't do this after all."

"What do you mean?" Shinra asked, but Izaya had already jumped out the window.

.

  
  
  


Shizuo chased after him.

He had never seen Izaya run before, so he was shocked to realize that Izaya was just as fast as he was, and steadily growing more and more out of reach. Izaya had always played at this before, in the warehouse, hinting at a game, as if he had been practicing for this. It was as if he had known that, someday, it would come to this.

The streets were totally deserted in the middle of the day, with all the adults working and all the children at school, and the rest stayed indoors in this murderous heat, safely settled next to fans and AC units and low tables of watermelon slices. But Izaya was in front of him, running away, and the only thing Shizuo could do was follow.

He chased Izaya through the front gates of the school, down the street. Izaya flitted into a nearby alleyway, taking turns so fast that Shizuo could barely keep up with him. He looked back often, smiling as if this were all a game.

One alleyway had a fence blocking it off, three meters tall and crowded with trash bins on either side. For an instant, Shizuo was _sure_ that he had him. But without missing a single step, Izaya simply launched himself onto the wall, running up it with the force of his momentum. He landed on the top with a light step, as if he hadn't just done something that no ordinary high school student should be able to do.

For an instant, Izaya just stood at the top of the chain link fence, watching Shizuo run at him, waiting for his surprise. There was a taunting smile on his lips, a smirk that said _You'll never catch me, but let's see you try_.

Then, he jumped down on the other side, just as Shizuo reached the fence.

They stared at each other for a moment, Izaya watching for Shizuo's reaction and Shizuo trying to wish away the barrier that separated them. They were only five feet apart, and the square patterned grey wires broke up the delicate lines of Izaya's face, turned his expression into disjoint pieces.

"Izaya," Shizuo wished he didn't sound so threatening, not when the last thing he wanted to do was scare Izaya away. He never even had the chance to get his next words out. As soon as he had spoken, Izaya turned and ran.

"_Izaya!_" His frustrated scream rang in the alleyway, but Izaya was already gone. In his fury, Shizuo sank his fingers into the holes of the fence. The wires bit into his flesh, cut into his skin, and he tore it apart in a screech of bending metal and rattling posts.

.

They ended up on a wide, residential street, with nothing in sight except for empty cars and dark houses. Finally, Izaya stopped, and turned around, holding a switchblade in front of him as if he meant to use it.

Shizuo stopped as well, knowing that taking a single step forward would mean another chase.

"Hey," Izaya ruined his casual tone by sounding completely out of breath. He shot Shizuo a grin anyway, as if he found something amusing in the expression on Shizuo's face and the threat of his presence. "Been a while."

Shizuo ignored Izaya's words in favor of inspecting his face. He seemed pale, and his cheekbones stood out more sharply than usual, as if he hadn't been outside of a hospital in weeks, as if he hadn't been eating properly. His grin looked even more forced than usual.

_Why did you run? _Shizuo wanted to ask, but he was afraid of the answer. Instead, he said: "Izaya, look, I'm sorry -"

The blade that whizzed by him missed by only a few centimeters. He could feel the air whip across his cheek, could hear the metallic clang of the blade landing far behind him on the street.

Shizuo instantly lost his temper. It was as if he hadn't learned anything at all. "What the _fuck_, Izaya?"

"You know," Izaya said nonchalantly, "I liked you better when your vocabulary wasn't so limited. Did I fuck your brains out? Or were you always like this?"

Shizuo didn't answer. He just lunged. Izaya dodged out of his grasp and struck him hard in his midsection. The blow forced all the air out of Shizuo's lungs. By the time he recovered, Izaya was already halfway down the street.

Shizuo wrenched a car door off of a nearby car, and threw it as hard as he could. It sailed up into the air, flipping over and over, and smashed into the concrete in front of Izaya's path. The glass shattered on impact, exploding everywhere.

When Izaya turned around, there was genuine shock on his face. He had been forced to stop in his tracks, and by then it was too late.

Shizuo grabbed him by the arm.

Izaya slipped out of his jacket in an instant, and skipped backwards, away from him. He was staring at Shizuo with an edge of manic laughter in his eyes, mixed in with disbelief. "So this is what it's like to have you angry at me," he said, and dodged out of Shizuo's way again. His shoes crunched on the shattered glass. "I've never seen it up close before."

"_Izaya_," Shizuo warned, but the warning came too late. Izaya backed into the edge of the car door, hitting it hard with his heel. The unexpected obstacle made him lose his balance, and for an instant the mad laughter in Izaya's eyes turned into panic.

He fell, and Shizuo caught him just in time, flipping them both so that he was the one that landed on the broken glass and the rough pavement. The impact jarred him out of his blind rage. Shizuo felt the edges rip into his clothes and dig into his skin. He gritted his teeth but endured it. He had suffered far worse before, and he did not think he would be able to handle seeing red gashes on Izaya's skin.

After the glass had finished skittering away, and the sound of Shizuo's yell had faded, everything went absolutely silent except for the sound of their breathing.

Izaya's weight on him was hardly enough to pin him down, but Shizuo froze anyway. There was a blade to his neck, held by a trembling hand. Ever since their first meeting, Izaya had never threatened him with his switchblade.

They both remained like that, breathing hard. Their breaths intermingled and mixed, wild and chaotic. Izaya's eyes were dark and full of despair, as if that had been his expression all along, and the mask had finally dropped.

He reached down toward the broken glass, but Shizuo caught his wrist before it touched the ground. The glass hadn't broken his skin, but he was sure that wouldn't be the case for Izaya. After a moment, Izaya seemed to come to the same conclusion as well. He ran his fingers across the unbroken skin of Shizuo's shoulder, and the glass shards fell away from Shizuo's torn sleeve clear and unstained with blood.

Shizuo stared up at him, desperate for more contact, terrified that the slightest motion would send Izaya flying away. Sweat ran down Izaya's face, and Shizuo followed the bead that ran down the side of his neck. For one, dizzying moment, he wondered if it would be worth it to lean up and take the blade just to catch that drop against the tip of his tongue.

Something flitted across Izaya's face, some expression of bitter resignation or defeat.

Then, with one smooth motion, he threw the knife away and seized Shizuo's shirt, pulling him up into a kiss.

.

Shizuo lost his mind.

He had his arms around Izaya's body, caging him in, running his fingers into soft dark hair and reveling in every inch of it. The sound of glass shards falling away from his clothes barely registered. He kissed everything and anything he could reach - the soft of Izaya's lips, the skin under his jaw, his throat, his collarbone. He forced himself to be gentle, reminded himself that he would rather die than hurt Izaya again. Izaya made a broken sound above him, desperate and wanting, and all thoughts of being careful went straight out of Shizuo's head.

It was better than he remembered, or imagined. Better than he could have possibly believed. Every touch sent sweet shivers through him, until he felt like he was gorging on something, drinking madly from a water source after days in the desert. He was addicted to it. It would never be enough.

"Shizuo," Izaya gasped, and then a note of determination entered his voice. He pushed Shizuo hard to get his attention. "Shizuo, we can't do this here."

Shizuo stared at him through a haze of heat, and almost said _Why not? I don't care if anyone sees. _Now that he finally had Izaya in front of him, nothing would be enough to make him let go.

Then, he remembered that he was supposed to let Izaya do whatever he wanted now, that he owed Izaya everything as an apology.

He knew better than to open his mouth and potentially ruin everything. Shizuo forced himself to focus, and nodded.

"My house is a couple blocks away," Izaya said, and Shizuo realized that he was trembling. He could only tell because he was holding Izaya so tightly against him. Izaya seemed to take several deep breaths before the trembling stopped.

"Come on," he said, and his touch against the side of Shizuo's face was agonizingly tender. "It won't take long."

Shizuo realized with an ugly shock that he hadn't been chasing after Izaya to apologize. What he had wanted all along was this - Izaya's touch against his skin and the surrender in his eyes. And Izaya _knew_, had known since the very beginning.

"Izaya," Shizuo started, before he realized what he was about to say. He killed the words before they could get past his throat.

Izaya's entire body tensed, but with Shizuo's arms around him, he couldn't run. Shizuo wanted more than anything to kiss him gently, to convince him with soft caresses, to swear to him that no harm would ever come to him again.

But he had to know if Izaya _wanted _this, or if he was doing this out of fear.

"Are you afraid of me?"

For a moment, Izaya just stared at him in total incomprehension.

Then, he threw his head back and laughed, sharp and clear, like someone laughing at the end of their rope, terrified out of their fucking mind and finding it funny all the same. 

"Why would I ever be afraid of you?" he asked, when he had stopped, and Shizuo was staring at him in total confusion. Izaya kissed him harshly, as if he meant to make Shizuo bleed. "You would never do a single thing to hurt me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the world is on fire rn and I'm not handling it well but hey :) at least I wrote this last year so there was no extra work to be done


	14. The Deal with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(He never should have agreed.)_

When they passed by a convenience store, Izaya held Shizuo back for a moment and said: "Stay here."

He went in while Shizuo waited outside, locked to stillness more by the shocking press of Izaya's fingers than the force of his command. He stared up into the sky, cloudless and blue, and wondered if he would ever be able to breathe normally again.

After a while, Izaya came out, looking as if he were lost in thought. He didn't smile when he saw Shizuo standing about, but he did say "You look like a proper delinquent now," with an edge of humor to it.

"And who's fault is that?" Shizuo shot back, but Izaya was too distracted to laugh. They were both more jittery than usual, unable to maintain the flow of a proper conversation, paying too much attention to each other's movements as they walked together down the wide residential streets.

It felt like the first few weeks that they had spent in each other's company. Shizuo was so aware of Izaya that it felt like he had gained some sort of gravitational pull, one that Shizuo couldn't help but angle toward and revolve around, drawn in slowly but inexorably. He could feel it like a pull in his bones, in the tingling of his palms, the itch between his shoulder blades. Every part of him knew exactly where Izaya was, and what he was doing, and longed for the moment when he could just reach out -

"Here," Izaya said, stopping abruptly. Shizuo came to a halt next to him, only saved from crashing into Izaya by his heightened awareness. Izaya hadn't even looked at the house they were standing in front of, but now he was opening the gate, and pulling out a key from his bag to unlock the front door.

"Here?" Shizuo repeated, surprised. This was an incredibly nice area, more for rich retired bachelors than for families. The house was small but expensive looking, with two stories, built out of dark wood and metal frames. The windows on the second floor were massive, almost taking up the entire wall instead of being relegated to simple, traditional squares. Looking at the house, and how much it resembled an office rather than a home, Shizuo suddenly realized why Izaya had seemed so comfortable in the airy metallic space of the warehouse.

Izaya was already in the hallway and taking off his shoes, leaving no time for Shizuo to stand there and gape at the strange modern looking house for long. There was no sudden relaxation in the angle of his shoulders as he crossed the threshold into his house, and no easing into comfort. He went through the practiced, routine motions of turning on the lights and setting down his bags, but he did it all silently, without calling out "I'm home!" or anything similar.

"Pardon the intrusion," Shizuo murmured politely, under his breath, even though he was sure that Izaya was the only one in the house. A shiver went through him at the thought.

He took off his shoes, and looked up to find Izaya standing right in front of him, staring at him with that same unreadable expression.

Shizuo's heart slammed against his chest. He had forgotten, for a moment, to be aware of Izaya's presence as he had studied the house and its dark hallways. Now, suddenly reminded of the other's presence, he found it difficult to think of anything else.

"Let's get you cleaned up first," Izaya said, as if he didn't have scrapes on his face or sweat matting his hair either. "I don't think you got cut by any of the glass, but it can't be good to leave the smaller shards in your shirt either."

Shizuo went completely still at the prospect of being shirtless in front of Izaya in his own house.

_It's not like you have to hide anything anymore_, he thought, but he was frozen all the same. Then, _oh god, how does he feel about all this? How does he feel about me?_

"Come on," Izaya said, not impatiently. He reached out and took Shizuo by the wrist, and just like always, Shizuo followed.

.

The design of Izaya's house didn't seem to be well suited for a family. Shizuo had some trouble figuring out what it was before he realized it - there was no kitchen. There was a small sink, and several electrical appliances such as a microwave and a rice cooker, but there was no stove or no oven. The image of his mother standing in his kitchen, bustling around with bowls and spatulas, would never fit into a kitchen as small as this one.

"Are you hungry?" Izaya asked, when Shizuo stared at the makeshift kitchen for a moment too long.

"No," Shizuo replied, distracted. He suddenly wanted Izaya to come to his home for once. He wanted to introduce Izaya to the warm light of the kitchen, to the comfort of eating as much as you wanted.

"Come this way," Izaya said, and Shizuo hurried to keep up.

They both got cleaned up, washing dust and bits of broken glass off of their skin and their clothes. When they were done, Shizuo felt so tense that he could hardly breathe. Izaya was both too close and too far away.

"Are you still experiencing withdrawal symptoms?" Izaya sat down on his bed, watching Shizuo intently. Shizuo followed him, feeling as if he were being yanked over on some kind of leash.

"Yes," Shizuo lied. He thought of the endless nights curled around himself, jerking off to the memory of Izaya's body underneath him. He thought of the sickening emptiness he felt without Izaya by his side. He thought of the way he had come here, fighting every step, but unable to stay away. He met Izaya's eyes, and didn't flinch from the pain he saw on Izaya's face.

Without waiting for Izaya's reaction, he said: "I need you." Not _I love you _or _I want you_. Izaya wouldn't react to that. But Izaya had always liked being needed.

"I know," Izaya said. He came closer, wound his fingers into Shizuo's hair, and Shizuo's entire body flared with heat at how easily Izaya came to him. "As it turns out, I need you too. But we have to set some ground rules. You can't just throw a freaking car door at me every time."

"Okay," Shizuo said, instead of _I'm sorry_. He shivered as Izaya's touch moved to the back of his neck.

"First," Izaya said, and then turned and pushed Shizuo down on the bed, flat on his back. His eyes were cold, distant, even as his hands pressed warmth into Shizuo's skin. "I don't belong to you. Don't expect me to come whenever you call, and don't expect me to change for you."

Every word was a knife in Shizuo's ribs, and it was almost a relief how much it hurt. It felt as if he was finally getting the punishment he deserved. He couldn't look away.

"Second," Izaya's fingers moved to unbutton Shizuo's tattered shirt. "The reverse is not going to be true for you. After today, _you belong to me. _You go where I tell you to go, and do what I tell you to do, even if it means that we don't go to the warehouse ever again. It'll just be the same as what we've been doing, just without the other bribes."

His fingers were trembling, but Shizuo was too far gone to notice. Shizuo would have agreed to anything, would have done anything for this. He felt as if he could hardly breathe, caught in between heart pounding appreciation of Izaya's face and the heart wrenching meaning of Izaya's words.

"And third," Izaya said. "If either of us says stop, we stop. If it gets to be too much. No questions, no clinging, and nothing else changes between us except for this."

_I'll never be able to tell him to stop, even if it kills me_, Shizuo thought. And at the same instant, _Then I'll never let him know._

"Deal?"

Shizuo nodded, "Deal."

Izaya kissed him, sudden and fierce, but Shizuo suddenly felt as if a steel cage had just slammed over his heart. 

.

He pushed Izaya's legs apart, and felt the soft skin on the inside of his thigh, the lack of resistance. He pushed them further still, testing the limits of Izaya's flexibility, testing his willingness to let Shizuo do whatever he wanted. Izaya just laid back and watched him, his expression unreadable, but his body compliant and relaxed, accepting every suggestion that Shizuo pressed into him with his hands.

"Tell me if it hurts," Shizuo said. "You're so flexible that it's hard to tell."

A flash of amusement went across Izaya's face. "Shouldn't you be more concerned about getting your clothes off first?"

Shizuo fought back the urge to rake his fingers across the buttons of Izaya's shirt, to break the thin string and tear open the flimsy fabric. It would be a childish thing to do, even if it proved a point. "I'm getting there," he said, exasperated. Then, he followed it up with undoing his own shirt, and the buttons of his pants.

Izaya was undressing too, something that Shizuo couldn't help watching, as if every single one of his motions captured all of Shizuo's attention. His wrist flexed, and his shirt came off in one smooth motion, revealing bare shoulders and a delicious expanse of skin. Shizuo resisted the temptation of leaning into him right then and there, to find temporary satisfaction in the slide of his palm against Izaya's sides, against the open planes of his chest.

Instead, he brushed his thumb against Izaya's ribs. Two cracked ribs. And it was his fault. He watched Izaya's face for signs of pain, braced for it.

_I shouldn't be doing this_. Izaya wasn't like him. He healed slowly, just like a normal person would. He shouldn't be running around and jumping over fences. He shouldn't be doing this.

But instead of pain, Izaya's eyes went dark with arousal, and he shuddered when Shizuo pressed a palm against his ribs. Shizuo was on top of him in the next instant, bringing them both down on the bed, desperate for more contact. He would be careful, this time. He would do anything, as long as it ended with Izaya under him like this, warm and willing and reacting to every little touch.

"Are you ready?" He asked. Izaya's eyes on him were unreadable, but he nodded, accepted the demand in Shizuo's voice. He even managed to smile.

"Let's have fun," he lilted. "It's just you and me, Shizuo. Nothing to be ashamed about. I won't judge you for reverting into a mindless beast for a while."

Shizuo thrust into him as an answer. Izaya's body gave way for him completely, and a sharp cry ripped out from his throat.

When Shizuo didn't move again, paralyzed by guilt, Izaya shifted to look at him. "What's the matter?" He asked, teasing, with no hint of a tremor anywhere in his voice. "Don't overthink it, Shizuo. It's just sex. Come on," his voice softened seductively. "You can pretend that I'm a girl. I'll act like one if that's what you want."

With a groan, Shizuo kissed him to shut him up. He began to move, feeling his cock dig into the soft resistance of Izaya's body, feeling it drag against Izaya's inner walls. For a long, blessed span of time, he no longer had to think. He lost himself in the way it all felt, the scent of Izaya's skin, the sound of his gasps.

After a while, jokingly, Izaya began to moan in a high, seductive voice. "_Shizuo, fuck me harder, please, you feel so -_"

"Don't talk like that!" Shizuo ordered. He thrust hard into Izaya's body, making him stop. He relished the way Izaya's eyes went out of focus, the way Izaya gasped with unfeigned heat. He began to work harder into Izaya's body, filling him up with friction, giving him no space to breathe, no opportunity to draw air into his lungs. His pace was unforgiving, even as Izaya began to clutch at his neck in desperation, began to beg wordlessly for a small reprieve.

"I'm sorry," Izaya gasped. "It was a joke. I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"

Shizuo wanted to stop, wanted to brush his fingers across Izaya's face and tell him that it was okay, that he was perfect the way he was. Instead, he just slowed down his hips, started to thrust forcefully and deliberately into Izaya's body. He had been fantasizing about doing this for so long, he still couldn't believe that it was actually happening. His hands shook with the desire to wrap his fingers around Izaya's cock, to bring him to the brink of orgasm and then fuck him over the edge.

"_Fuck_," Izaya moaned. His fingernails dug into Shizuo's back. They would have broken skin if it had been anyone else. Shizuo felt every muscle in his body tense, curling up as if something inside him had started to twist out of shape. He lost awareness of anything except for the small pocket of the world that just contained the two of them, and the incredible pleasure he got from every single one of Izaya's reactions.

Izaya flailed underneath him, and Shizuo pinned him down, buried his face in Izaya's shoulder. He did not think he would remain sane if he looked up into Izaya's face. Izaya convulsed and came, biting back sounds, trying to make as little noise as possible. His arms came around Shizuo's neck, and he buried his face in Shizuo's shoulder as if he were trying to hide his expression. He couldn't hide the way his body trembled though, and the way he unconsciously tried to drag Shizuo down against him.

Something about him - the way he tried to hide, as if he were ashamed, the way he clung to Shizuo for support, drove Shizuo crazy. He pressed Izaya down, hard, feeling another spike of heat at the way Izaya cried out. He felt his own release blow him open, shatter every last thought in his head.

It left him weak and trembling, and he finally understood why Izaya had tried to hide his expression. He felt exposed, vulnerable in a way that he had never felt before. He pressed his forehead against the pillow for a long time, slowly gathering enough pieces of himself to put back together, so that when he looked at Izaya's eyes and saw emptiness, he would not shatter and break.

.

There was a term for this, Shizuo thought numbly, staring at the bruises that had patterned themselves across Izaya's arms, the dark shadows his fingers had left on the pale skin. He didn't want to think about it, but he knew what this was called. If any outsider saw them now, the two of them together, Izaya with his bruised skin and his bitter smile, Shizuo with his reputation for violence and anger, what would they think?

_But I love him_, he thought at that imaginary watcher. When Izaya got up to go find his jacket, Shizuo followed him with his eyes, and didn't even try to hide it.

A sickening realization welled up inside him. _Wait, that makes it even worse_.

He remembered the men he had seen on TV, being arrested for beating their wives and their girlfriends. He remembered thinking that they were the scum of the earth, foolish, insecure, horrible people who didn't deserve to see the light of day.

His particular brand of violence had at least been honest; he hurt anyone who hurt him. To hurt someone you loved - you had to be a different kind of monster to be able to do that.

Shizuo thought he must have been the world's leading expert on pain. He had been torn up and stitched back together more times than he could count, until he felt like more needle and thread than bone and flesh. But he had never felt pain like this before.

He had once thought that love was a tender thing, gentle and affectionate. He had once thought that if he could manage to fall in love, somehow, he could find a cure for the violence that seemed to follow him like a shadow. He had thought that love could turn him into someone else. He now knew better. His love was something violent and cruel. His love could rip someone to shreds.


	15. The Bakery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(It was supposed to have brought them closer, but instead everything just slipped out of his grasp.)_

The next day, after class, Izaya was waiting outside of his classroom, waiting for him.

"I came to remind you," he said.

"I know," Shizuo replied. He wondered if he was allowed to reach out now, to brush his fingers against Izaya's face. "I can't go to the warehouse from now on, right?"

"Right." Izaya started off, and Shizuo followed.

After they had gone on walking for a while, Izaya glanced at Shizuo with a hint of amusement in his eyes. "Aren't you going to ask me why?"

"No," Shizuo said simply.

Izaya gave him a sidelong look. "Did I ever tell you about Nakura?" he asked.

"Shinra told me about him."

Izaya didn't have anything to say to that.

He kept his hands in his pockets, so Shizuo couldn't have reached out even if he had wanted to. They walked out of the school's front gates, away from the direction they normally went in. Shizuo felt strange, stepping out onto the main street that led away from the school. He didn't know where to go from here.

Thankfully, though, Izaya seemed to have a destination in mind. He led the way to a small mooncake shop that had outdoor seating, low circular wooden tables with small wooden benches. He greeted the lady at the counter with a sweet smile, and paid for several mooncakes.

"You're bribing me again," Shizuo said as they sat down. He wasn't complaining, though.

As usual, Izaya sat with his chin in his hands, and watched Shizuo eat it all.

"What do you want to do?" Shizuo asked, trying to ration the rest of the mooncakes. He was content to sit here for the rest of the day, but he didn't want to make Izaya go and buy more sweets.

"I figured that we should talk," Izaya said. Shizuo stopped mid-swallow.

Time unfroze, and he carefully swallowed without choking.

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked carefully.

Izaya shrugged. "Anything, I suppose. We never really talked much, in the warehouse. It's almost been a year since we met each other, but I still feel like I hardly know you."

Shizuo felt his skin grow cold. "A year?" he repeated. He started to count backwards in his head. Shit, Izaya was right. They had known each other for almost a year.

Then the rest of Izaya's statement registered, and Shizuo stared at Izaya in surprise. "What do you mean, you don't know me?" They had gotten drunk together. They had fucked, multiple times by now.

Shizuo tried not to feel hurt, but it was hard. Why would Izaya do something like that with someone he didn't know? Or did it not matter to him at all, if he fucked a stranger?

"Do you feel like you know me?" Izaya asked. Then, as if proving a point: "Do you know what my sister's names are? Do you know what they call me?"

"Does it matter?" Shizuo asked.

Izaya's expression shut off, and too late, Shizuo realized that he was angry. He wasn't sure when it had happened, and why that anger suddenly seemed to surface out of nowhere. How long had Izaya been angry? And why?

"Izaya," he said urgently, but he felt Izaya's attention slipping away from him. "What's all of this about? If you don't tell me, then I won't be able to figure it out."

It was too late. Izaya had gone stone cold and quiet. They stayed like that for a long time, as the sun passed overhead, and the wind picked up intermittently.

Shizuo couldn't look away from Izaya's face. He felt as if he were balancing on a high ledge, with sharp cliffs to either side. He was too afraid to say anything, afraid to move, as if doing anything would result in losing his balance and falling to his death.

_How did it come to this? _He wondered. They had been friends, almost best friends, for almost a year. They had laughed together, told jokes, complained about classes, and shared secrets. What if Izaya didn't see it that way? What if Shizuo had been the only one who had liked spending time together, had been the only one who had fallen in love?

With a sharp, twisting sensation, Shizuo realized that Izaya was right. He _didn't _know Izaya, not if he couldn't even answer _that_ simple question.

He was so distracted with worry that he almost missed it when Izaya set his hands down, and pressed them down on the table. Izaya was finally looking at him again, but with a strange, tense expression on his face.

"What do you want from me?" Izaya asked, at last. "Why did you come to the warehouse?"

He was talking about them, almost a year ago. Shizuo tried to keep his heart calm, but it was difficult.

"At first, I just wanted to know who you were." _Then I wanted so much more._

"And then?"

"And then I found out." _Who you are. What you are._

Izaya looked hurt. _God, he looks so beautiful_. For a long moment, he just stared up at Shizuo silently, not offering anything except his searching gaze.

Shizuo wanted to kiss him senseless, wanted to bring his fingers up to the soft curve of his cheek. But there was a barrier between them now, invisible but there all the same, growing more real and tangible as the silence stretched.


	16. Dreams of the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(He began to think that nothing would change, that even though he had everything he wanted, none of it felt anything like he thought it would.)_

"Hello again, sir." The receptionist said, smiling at Izaya with recognition in her eyes. "How many rooms will it be this time?"

"One, please." Izaya said to her. He didn't look at Shizuo, but they both had heard.

Shizuo was silent in the elevator, and silent until they reached the room.

After Izaya had turned the lock and faced him, Shizuo leveled him with a glare. "You've been here before," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Izaya replied nonchalantly, taking off his jacket. The sight made Shizuo blink, and before he knew it, Izaya had pushed past him and gone into the room.

His heart was still racing when Izaya continued to strip his shirt off. Then, Izaya started inspecting the room, rifling through the drawers with heartbreaking familiarity.

"With who?" Shizuo asked, calmly, even though he wanted to tear this room apart, wanted to smash his fists into the drawers and into the gaudy mirrors, the wooden headboard and the stupid pale blue walls. He imagined Izaya with some faceless person, tangled together on those soft bed sheets, imagined the way Izaya would smile at them knowingly, would wrap them around his fingers like putty as they watched him with adoration in their eyes.

Izaya found what he was looking for - a bottle of lube, one of those one-time-use containers, patterned in bright green and blue, with yellow letters. He showed it to Shizuo, tossing it up and catching it, before saying: "I can get started myself, if you're just going to stand there."

Shizuo was going over to him before he knew it, snatching the lube out of his hands, furious and turned on all at once. "_Answer me_," he said, and was caught off guard by Izaya throwing his arms around his neck. They went crashing onto the bed.

"It doesn't matter anyway," Izaya said, and kissed him lightly. "I'm clean, and I know you haven't been fucking anybody besides me. "

  
  
  


In his dream, Shizuo had just killed somebody.

He looked down at his hands and saw his fingernails crusted, and his sleeves soaked through with blood. He looked down at his feet and saw an endless, flat pool of dark liquid that seemed to stretch out forever, until it met a horizon of an inky black sky with no stars.

Izaya was bleeding, dead-eyed and listless.

He didn't respond to anything that Shizuo did, not the press of his lips, not the agonized scream of his name. His skin was untouched by the blood on the ground, but a steady stream of it poured out from him, like he was a cask draining dry. Shizuo felt for a pulse, and his fingers broke through Izaya's neck like crumbling plaster. 

When he woke up from his dream, the details remained in his head, vivid, staining the backs of his eyelids with unnatural colors.

Shizuo shoved his palm against his mouth so hard that he nearly cut his skin against his teeth. In a fit of revenge, he bit down so hard that it actually hurt.

It wasn't enough. He was still so unnaturally aroused that he couldn't even move for fear of the added friction and what it might do to him. Slowly, the feeling subsided, but Shizuo couldn't help feeling like the world's worst cesspit had just dumped its contents into his stomach.

For a long time, he just breathed in shallowly and tried to think of nothing. It was just a dream. It didn't mean anything.

In the end, he just pulled himself over to Izaya and curled up next to him. Izaya was breathing softly, fast asleep, curled up around himself for warmth.

Shizuo relaxed a little. The sight of Izaya, asleep and harmless looking, and very much alive, seemed to help.

He wanted to wrap his arms around Izaya and fall asleep that way. It would be warmer that way anyway. But he hesitated at the last second, irrationally afraid of what might happen if he actually did reach out.

Izaya shifted a little in his sleep.

Shizuo reached out -

\- and Izaya woke up, seeming to go from a deep sleep to wide awake instantly. For a moment, he just seemed disoriented. Then, somehow, he sensed Shizuo's hand and jerked upright, flinging Shizuo's hand away to keep it from touching him.

At that reaction, Shizuo flinched so violently that he pulled away several inches. They stared at each other for a long moment.

Then, at the same time, they both decided to ignore what just happened.

"It's morning," Shizuo said gently. "Do you still want to sleep? We don't have to be up for another hour at least."

Izaya shook the sleepiness away. He reached out and pushed at Shizuo's shoulder in revenge for waking him up. "Let's go get something to eat," Izaya said, sounding exhausted. There seemed to be a constant air of exhaustion around him lately. He didn't exactly sleep during class, but he still looked as if he hadn't been sleeping well.

Shizuo wanted to push Izaya down and force him to go back to sleep. Izaya clearly needed more of it. But Izaya was already getting up, and putting his covers back neatly.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, let's go get some food," Izaya said. He still sounded tired.

"Okay," Shizuo said, following him obediently.

They went out of the hotel. The morning air seemed to wake Izaya up a little. Shizuo watched him carefully, wondering if he was sick, wondering if something had happened at home for him to look this exhausted. 

He wished he could come up with something to say, but as always, his mind remained completely blank of words to say, and he knew that trying to blurt something out would probably backfire, so Shizuo kept his mouth shut.

Izaya came back with a breakfast of bread stuffed with a small amount of meat. He sat down and leaned sleepily against Shizuo as he ate.

Shizuo looked up at the sky, clear and cloudless, and tried his best not to move an inch.

"I think I'm not going to be at this school next year," Izaya said quietly.

Shizuo forced himself to stay still, to not explode. His heart rate was suddenly insanely high.

"Why?" Shizuo asked quietly. He turned to look at Izaya, but Izaya had his face buried in Shizuo's shoulder. His bread was in his lap, forgotten.

"My parents are just freaking out about the crime rate in the area," Izaya said, and sounded bitter when he said: "They know that they have enough money to move to a better city, but they forgot the fact that I'm in the middle of my second year here. Apparently, they want me to get along with other people, but they expect me to be fine with leaving all of my friends behind."

Shizuo felt a warmth in his chest, even as he pressed his chin against Izaya's head. They stayed like that for a moment, leaning into each other.

"Is there any chance you can make them change their mind?" Shizuo asked.

Izaya shrugged. "I don't know. They're my parents. Why should they listen to me?"

Shizuo shoved at him a little with his shoulder. "Come on," he said, frightened by the defeated tone of Izaya's voice. "You've run circles around every teacher in our school, and you've got nearly all the delinquents in the district at your beck and call. Why can't you figure out how to get your parents to listen to you?"

Izaya bit at him jokingly, more the suggestion of teeth than an actual bite. "They're living overseas right now. What could I possibly do in order to convince them to listen to me? It's not like my personal happiness outweighs the safety concerns in their mind."

Shizuo was starting to get desperate. "You could let me loose on the streets again," he suggested. It was half a joke, and half a dead-serious option that he was willing to take. "You said before, right? I can just clean up the city. The amount of crimes at school basically disappeared after we took over the warehouse, right? Why can't we -"

Izaya shook his head, even though he smiled. "It won't work like that in the real world, Shizuo. You're just one person. You can't beat an entire police department. Are you trying to become a vigilante? Or a hero? You'll get yourself killed, especially in this city."

"Are you sure? I -"

"Shut up," Izaya said. "Just hold me."

Shizuo reached out, and wrapped Izaya in his arms. He couldn't stop himself from curling his fingers into Izaya's hair. He couldn't resist stroking the sensitive spot underneath Izaya's ear, wanting more than anything to provide comfort in the only way he knew how.

Izaya shivered at his touch, but for once he didn't offer anything more. He just leaned into Shizuo, quiet and unmoving.

The wind around them picked up, carrying the scent of sea salt. Shizuo tried to keep the sand away from Izaya's face, tried to create as much space as possible for Izaya to rest, undisturbed by the rest of the world. He didn't know why he suddenly felt the urge to cry. He had never once cried in front of Izaya, not even when the guilt had been at its worst.

The moment lasted forever, and Shizuo stared up into the empty blue sky, wondering if he would ever be able to make time move forward again.


	17. The Nadir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(He realized only too late what a monster he had become.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: rape / noncon

"Do you know who you've been involved with this entire time?" Masahiro asked him, later, empty-eyed and accusatory. He had gone back to doing drugs, and it showed on his face and his skin, his bloodshot gaze and his chewed-up fingernails. "You've been hanging around him this entire time, but don't you know? He's the devil."

  
  


.

  
  


"I never should have gotten involved with him," Hayato hissed, later, fingers digging into the fabric of his cast. He looked down, and refused to meet Shizuo's eyes, even as rage seethed in his words. "He won. He got everything he wanted, didn't he? Even you."

  
  


.

  
  


"He's the reason that we got expelled," the upperclassmen told him. "We had everything, a good home, a good family, girls, fans. But he took it all away, because we were selling drugs. It started out as a harmless joke! But he didn't see it that way, and so now our lives are over. And it's your fault, too, you know. If you weren't there -"

  
  


.

  
  


"I hate you!" Maebara screamed at him, sobbing as she was held back by the campus police. "

I hate you! I hate all of you! You did this to us! You're the reason why Masahiro will never be the way he once was! You're the reason why he got expelled!"

  
  


.

  
  


"Ignore them," Izaya whispered into Shizuo's ear, sending a hot shiver down his spine. "They all deserved it anyway."

  
  


.

  
  


When he snapped and pinned Izaya against the wall, hand against his throat, rage seething in his veins, it was already too late.

"You've been lying to me," he said. He hated that, even now, as soon as they touched, his skin started to buzz a little from anticipation. They hardly ever touched now except to fuck, and it was like his body had developed a constant ache nowadays, like he had developed an addiction. Or maybe Izaya had carved channels underneath his skin, and that was why he always felt so hollow.

"You'll have to be more specific than that," Izaya said back. His eyes narrowed into a glare, and the coldness in his eyes shocked Shizuo. They had come to a stop in the middle of the empty alleyway, shadows made long by the setting sun.

Things had been building up to this, Shizuo thought. The tension in his spine, the uneasiness in his heart, the growing coldness in Izaya's gaze.

"You tell me," Shizuo said. "Have I done enough for you already? Or do you need me to hurt more people?"

Izaya went completely still, his expression going blank.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You know what they've been calling you?" Shizuo asked, barely believing the words even as they came out of his own mouth. "They've been calling you the devil. And I'm beginning to believe that they're right."

For a moment, Shizuo thought he would say something hurtful, something that went right through his bones. He braced himself for it. Izaya had always been good at hurting him with words, even inadvertently.

But instead, Izaya lunged at him, wrist out, knife in his hand. Shizuo caught his wrist just as it began its downward swing, and was shocked by the strength behind it. Izaya's arm began to tremble with the effort. The blade glinted as it pointed downwards.

"You know," Izaya said conversationally. "I'm starting to think that it's no longer fun, playing around with you like this."

Shizuo's blood froze, and not from the knife. "What do you mean?"

"I mean it was fun while it lasted," Izaya's smile was sharp, no mirth behind it at all. "But clearly not fun enough for you. What? Don't tell me that _you're _getting sick of all this bloodshed."

Something inside Shizuo snapped.

"Shut up," he said, breathing hard, even though it took no effort at all to keep Izaya's knife away from him. "_Shut up!_"

Then, before Izaya could say anything, he twisted the knife out of Izaya's grasp, reached forward with both hands to seize his collar, and brought their lips together in a bruising kiss.

He was shocked by the way Izaya kissed him back, desperately. Their lips met in a clash of teeth and painful, bruising force. Izaya was trembling, his skin so warm that it made Shizuo go numb with expectation. Izaya's arm came around Shizuo's neck. He pressed Shizuo down onto his back, his breath ragged on the edge of panic. Shizuo fought down the burst of arousal that went through him.

_Don't let him talk,_ he thought madly. _If he talks, then it's all over._

Izaya's fingers tightened around Shizuo's arm painfully. His breathing was wrecked, terrified. Shizuo instantly pulled him closer, feeling the same. Was this it? Was this goodbye? He couldn't ever remember seeing Izaya's eyes like that before, so cold and _done_, tired of him, bored. Panic made him dig his fingers into Izaya's sides, and Izaya made a punched out sound, hot and desperate.

He wanted to stop. He wanted to say sorry, to run his fingers over the bruise he had just made. But Izaya ignored him completely now. He was trying to push Shizuo's shirt off, but he was shaking so hard that he could barely move. Shizuo caught him by the wrist, and Izaya let out another muffled wail of pain.

Then he pressed his forehead against Shizuo's chest, hiding his expression. Shizuo tried to push him back a little, to see his face, but Izaya stubbornly stayed where he was. His fingers found Shizuo's collar, and clutched convulsively. "Fine," he said, his voice shaking. "If that's how you want it to be, then -"

He never finished. Waves of heat were running through Shizuo's body now, going to his head and making him dizzy. He felt Izaya's trembling infect him, and forced himself to keep his voice steady. He pulled Izaya closer, cradling the back of his head.

_I know how to fix this_, he thought. Izaya was burning up in his arms. It was like holding a boiling kettle with a burning metal shell. _Just stop thinking. Just don't think. Then maybe we can forget -_

He realized that he was pressing his face against Izaya's hair, drawing in greedy lungfuls of his scent. He forced himself to open his eyes, to come back to reality. Izaya was clutching at his shoulders, at the back of his neck. He made a noise of complaint when Shizuo drew away.

The sound went straight to his bones. It washed away the last of his restraint.

Shizuo kissed Izaya, hard and sure, cutting off the rest of that sound. He pressed forward, relishing in the surrender he tasted in those lips, the way Izaya closed his eyes and gave him everything. He didn't care that they were only barely hidden by the shadows in the alleyway. All thoughts went out of his head. 

When he pulled away, Izaya was wild-eyed and gasping, shaking so hard that Shizuo could feel it. He struggled to speak, but all he managed was a low moan as Shizuo kissed him again.

"Just be quiet," Shizuo told him, already crazy with lust. He needed Izaya _now_, had missed the feel of his skin, the warmth of his body. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered as long as he had this.

Half-pulling, half-dragging the other alongside him, Shizuo moved deeper into the alleyway, where there was an alcove created by the buildings around them. Before Izaya could regain his balance, Shizuo wrapped an arm around his waist and roughly palmed the front of Izaya's pants. Izaya was already undoing the buttons on Shizuo's pants, breathing hard, looking desperate and a little frightened.

Shizuo pressed their bodies together, pressed their lips together. He tried to sound reassuring. "Don't be afraid," he whispered, before running his teeth along Izaya's jaw and biting gently at his ear. He felt Izaya shiver against him, but Izaya nodded.

He forced Izaya's body back, further into the shadows. He barely waited before Izaya had removed one leg of his pants, didn't wait for the rest of their clothing. He just freed his cock from his own pants, and lifted Izaya up against the wall, driven mad by the sounds Izaya was making. He wanted Izaya to be quiet, wanted Izaya to scream louder until everyone could hear.

An agonized breath later, and he found himself fucking up into the give of Izaya's body, the tight heat that consumed the last of his sanity, the last of his reason. He groaned wildly, needing more. He wanted to devour the body before him, wanted to wrap him in his own skin and take him in as part of his own flesh, to consume every delicious inch of smooth, pale skin. He wanted to tangle their limbs together, wanted to twine his fingers through Izaya's hair.

With a muffled groan, Shizuo pressed Izaya backward, wishing he had the slow expanse of forever to fuck into that willing body. He was aware of time, pressing down on him. He growled with possessive heat, thinking insanely, _I don't care how much time we have. He's mine, mine, mine. _He followed each thought with a thrust into Izaya's body, heard each of Izaya's answering gasps as wordless agreement, as surrender. But he wanted more, wanted everything, so he pushed in further, grinding against the open angle of Izaya's legs, desperate to find a way to mark him so completely that he would never be able to forget who he belonged to.

Izaya moaned, low and trembling. His body convulsed around Shizuo's cock, and he gasped as Shizuo fucked into him harder. Shizuo buried his face into Izaya's neck, thrust violently into the wet heat of his body. It wasn't enough. Nothing would be enough. He wanted to etch himself into Izaya's skin, wanted to engrave a mark on his soul, so that he would never leave, would never look at anyone else ever again. He wanted everyone in the world to know that Izaya belonged to him alone. 

He dug his fingers into Izaya's skin, relished the wail of pain it produced. Izaya was arching off the alley wall, head canted back to spill the dark of his hair over heat-dazed eyes. He pressed hard against Shizuo's body, coming with long, desperate, ragged inhales.

He whimpered as Shizuo kissed him roughly, but gave in when Shizuo pressed his tongue past the part of Izaya's lips, made a noise of possessive satisfaction against his mouth. Izaya convulsed again, coming so hard that he made a wet mess of the space between them, but Shizuo didn't care. He ran his fingers against Izaya's skin, spread his wet liquid across the soft of his stomach and the planes of his chest. He was thrusting into Izaya again, delighted by the soft moans it elicited from the pale line of Izaya's throat. 

The world trembled with heat, with the force of his desire. He was going to fuck Izaya until the end of the world came, would gladly join their bodies together until they became one, would destroy anything that came in between them. 

He was never going to get enough. He was never going to let Izaya go, would force him down and fuck him until his body was spent. He pressed his hands into Izaya's skin, demanding compliance, demanding surrender, and was met with low, pleading moans that only sharpened the edge of his lust, made him dizzy with want.

He was shocked by the sensation of fingers brushing against his face. His body seized with heat. He shoved Izaya back against the wall. He almost bit down, stopped himself at the last moment, and mindlessly fucked up into Izaya's body again in payment for his restraint. His fingers curled convulsively around Izaya's hips. He wanted to eat the sound of those moans, wanted to tear open Izaya's throat and drown in those lush cries of sex and pleasure. He pressed his mouth hard against Izaya's shoulder, open and shuddering - he would _not _use his teeth, not on Izaya, not on that skin - and muffled his own cries.

Izaya's fingers moved into his hair, dragging against the back of his head. Shizuo shuddered openly at the sensation, begged for more with the way he rocked into Izaya again, seeking more friction, more anything. They almost hurt, the way that his nerves flared to life wherever Izaya touched, until he was gasping from the intensity of it all, the sharp spikes of heat that flared up in response to the pressure of Izaya's fingers.

He came into Izaya's body, gasping and shaking with heat and still trying to hold himself back from biting down, from breaking skin. He couldn't resist, at the very last moment, from surging forward and devouring Izaya's mouth in a savage kiss, claiming his lips and his tongue and the air from his lungs, dragging teeth against the sensitive, soft feel of his lips. He thrust in again, and Izaya gave way for him so easily that he was certain that they were made for each other, this way, made to slide their skin against each other in mindless heat, made to take endless satisfaction from the way they fit together.

  
  


.

  
  


"Stay there," he said, later, but Izaya wouldn't have been able to move anyway. He slumped bonelessly against the wall, empty-eyed and staring at nothing. He seemed to be bleeding everywhere, from his lip and from Shizuo's bite marks on his neck, and he looked exactly as he had in Shizuo's dream.

Terrified, Shizuo knelt down, trying to assess where Izaya was hurt. But before he could reach out, Izaya stopped him with a cold glare.

"Don't touch me," he said, soft and deadly, looking at Shizuo like he was a monster. "Don't ever touch me again."

  
  


.

  
  


"How close was I to killing him?"

Shinra didn't look up. He was oddly calm, for someone who had just been confronted with a bleeding and broken body, and a monster on the verge of tearing the world apart.

"_Shinra_. _Answer me._"

"It's too early to tell," Shinra said gently. That was all Shizuo needed to hear.

He was so filled with shame that he wanted to curl up and die. He wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole, to create a crater so deep into the earth that he was dropped into boiling hot magma. He didn't care if it rent the earth to its core, and made earthquakes large enough to shatter the buildings around him. He didn't care if it dropped the entire city around him into a fiery death and shattered it to dust. He wanted everything to disappear.

He wanted to tear a hole in the fabric of reality, to hold a knife and cut the air around him to pieces. He hated this world, this place, this ugly sensation inside his skin and this unwelcome pressure against his bones. He wanted to kill everyone and everything in sight. He wanted to pulverize the ground into vapor. He wanted to dig his fingers into the walls around him and bring everything to the ground, level all the structures around him into a flat plain, featureless and flat and grey.

He slammed his fist into the wall, tearing out a huge chunk of it. Shinra looked up but didn't say anything. Shizuo wished that Shinra would yell at him to stop. He wasn't sure he could make himself stop on his own.

The table went crashing off to the side. The flower vases shattered on the floor, spilling water everywhere. The petals were crushed beneath his feet, delicate things that tore and fell apart as easily as breathing. He needed to kill something. He needed to break everything. He was going to _kill _Izaya when Izaya woke up. He was going to push him up against the wall with a hand around his neck. Then he would kiss him, or kill him, Shizuo didn't know. Maybe there would be no difference.

It had been so easy to break him. It had been so easy, with that threat and that anger burning in his veins, to forget who he really was.

_I hurt him, _Shizuo thought. And then Izaya's voice snaked into his thoughts, despite himself. _But he deserved it._


	18. The Desk

Shizuo lingered in the classroom, watching the warehouse through the window, until the sun started to set on the horizon. Nobody else came to bother him, and nobody else entered the room. His limbs felt so heavy that he could barely move.

It had been a full month since he had seen Izaya, and he had seen no sign of Izaya since. For most of the month, he had been filled with a sick kind of fury and shame, the kind that simmered and burned beneath his skin, the kind that would never cool down. But now, after everything, Shizuo felt strangely calm and accepting.

He could still see it clearly in his mind, how he had finally gone too far. They had both gone too far, drifted apart into fundamentally different people, despite clinging on to each other so desperately. 

He realized that everything was going to change now. Even if they hadn't both fucked up so badly, graduation had come and gone, and they would have gone their separate ways eventually. They would have lost access to the warehouse, would have lost their only connection to each other.

Shizuo forced himself to look away from the warehouse. He hadn't realized how much he had cherished that place until he had lost it forever. He had gone through so many school days, biting down boredom and irritation and anger, staring through those windows into the distance, waiting for the moment when he could walk through those doors.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, he looked down at his desk, feeling a black mood overwhelm him.

There were words carved lightly into the wood, faint and nearly unnoticeable. Shizuo felt a stab of nostalgia and pain go through him. He was surprised that his desk hadn't been changed in the past two years, or replaced. But the words were clearly written in Izaya's handwriting, and just the sight of it made it hard for Shizuo to breathe. He reached out and traced the words, wishing that he could reach through and touch the hand that wrote it.

_I'm not a stalker, I just love watching you fight._

_Don't you have other things to do in life, besides watching me suffer?_

_I think you have it wrong. The ones who suffer are the opponents you beat up. I enjoy watching their suffering, not yours._

_That's messed up._

_Why? Don't you enjoy it when the gangs come looking for you? Doesn't it make you feel special?_

_No. I hate it. I wish they would leave me alone._

_What if I told you there was a way to make them leave you alone forever?_

_Tomorrow afternoon_, _meet me in the warehouse behind the school._

Suddenly, Shizuo froze, his fingers digging so hard into the wood that it almost cracked under the pressure. There was another line, one that had been added later.

_I love you_, it said. _You don't have to answer me if you don't want to. Just don't stop coming to the warehouse._

.

The desk shattered underneath his fingers before Shizuo realized what he was doing, before he could stop himself. The sound of it cracking rang through the entire room.

Shizuo nearly leapt up out of his chair. He tried to recover the pieces of wood that had splintered off into the air, tried to piece them back together.

_Fuck! _How long had that been there? When had Izaya written it? How long ago? Shizuo wanted to scream. The message was gone, and in his panicked haste he had only succeeded in destroying more and more of the desk.

The pain and guilt from earlier was nothing compared to this. When had it happened? When had Izaya written this? What had Izaya thought, when Shizuo hadn't responded, and yet still came to the warehouse day after day?

Shizuo thought of the cheerful mask that Izaya always seemed to put on in front of him. It had been genuine, must have been genuine, in the very beginning. When had it become a mask, to hide the hurt and pain of perceived rejection? When had he broken Izaya's heart?

Why the fuck hadn't Izaya _said _anything? _Why? When had this happened?_

Shizuo came back to his senses once he realized that there was nothing left to throw, and nothing left to destroy. Everything in the classroom had been smashed into pieces, and the marks of his fury were everywhere - from the broken windows to the furniture that had been torn apart to the deep gouges in the wall. It looked as if an animal had been rampaging through the room, furious and intent on destroying every last trace of the words on that desk.

He buried his face in his hands and tried to stop shaking.

_I love you_, the message had said. It rang in his head like a bell, resonating through him, until he felt as if it would tear him apart. _I love you, I love you, I love you._

Shizuo closed his eyes. Images flashed through his head, one after another.

_How _could he be so blind? He could remember exactly when it had all gone wrong, could remember the exact moment Izaya had started to look at him with pain instead of warmth in his eyes. _Could _it have been that long ago? It must have. It would explain everything.

When he opened his eyes, he was still shaking, but at least he was no longer paralyzed. He had to go find Izaya, _now_.

Shizuo started toward the classroom door, and someone ran right into him on his way out.

The boy that had run into him was short and round-faced. Shizuo took a second to recognize him, but Minoru recognized him first.

"What are you still doing here?" Minoru yelped. He had careened off of Shizuo, and now was backing away with his hands raised.

Shizuo strode toward him and grabbed his collar, nearly lifting him off of the ground. "What do you mean?" he demanded.

Minoru gaped at him, and began to splutter. "The fight for the warehouse! You've abandoned the warehouse, and according to Hayato, everyone gets a shot at it after school today. What are you doing here? We all thought you were - that you were -"

Shizuo's thoughts shattered into a million pieces at the mention of the warehouse. He hadn't realized that Hayato had intended to make a move so quickly. "_What?_"

Minoru was already drawing his own conclusions. "Are you giving it up without a fight?" He asked, both incredulous and delighted. "Did you realize that you couldn't possibly take on all of us at once? Did you get _scared_?"

His crow of laughter was cut short by Shizuo slamming him into the wall, leaving a crater in the plaster. Without another word, Shizuo took off.

He had just remembered the last of the words written on the desk. _Don't abandon the warehouse_, Izaya had said. Everything he had done, to give Shizuo a safe space, to keep the gangs away from him, and Shizuo had just thrown it all away. 

The guilt returned, worse than ever. The sky was an eerie orange-red outside, the clouds bleeding from a million tiny stab wounds, and Shizuo ran as hard as he could, knowing that he was in a race against time.

.

When he arrived, he saw a determined and grim crowd of a hundred delinquents standing silently in the field outside of the warehouse. Every eye turned on Shizuo as he approached. They still clumped into groups, but this time Shizuo recognized each one, knew who they were, what they represented.

There was Hayato's group, a gang comprised mostly of delinquents who he had fought the first time. They weren't the full fifty, but they made up a significant portion of the hundred. Hayato stared at him, grim-faced but accepting. He seemed resigned, but determined, and the two of them shared a quick, acknowledging glance.

There was Masahiro's gang, who he had beaten up by the playground, back for their revenge.

There was Mikage's gang, all who had been trained at her family's dojo, here on her behalf, to salvage what they could for their heartbroken leader. Mikage was not there, for which Shizuo was grateful. She was probably worth another fifty people, given her fighting skills.

He knew words would be useless here, so he just went over to the side where a pile of steel beams, old and rusted and broken, leaned against the warehouse wall. He felt the blood roaring in his ears, from anger or adrenaline, he didn't know. He knew that both he and they wouldn't be satisfied until the field had exploded into violence, until all of them had their try at taking him down.

He hefted one steel beam onto his shoulder, twice as tall as he was, and it towered up into the air like some skyscraper amongst the crowd of baseball bats and iron crowbars. Shizuo looked them in the eye and found no mercy in his heart for any of them, not when they were coming to take what was his.

"_If you want this warehouse_," he said, filling his voice with danger until it boomed through the field like a declaration of war. "_Then come and take it from me._"

.

They came at him in waves, piling on to him until he could barely keep them away with massive swings of the steel beam. They were hardly the uncoordinated bunch that he had faced two and a half years ago. The times had changed, and they had all changed with it.

Hayato and three others sacrificed themselves, taking the full brunt of one of his swings to stop it in its tracks. In the next instant, at least five of Mikage's students, dressed in white and lightning quick, came at him from all directions.

Shizuo took one down with a punch to the chest, but the rest grabbed onto his arms and legs. They fought to bring him down to the ground, jamming elbows and knees into his joints and weakening his stance. Shizuo stumbled, and then flung them away with a violent spin, making the two who were holding his arms fly off into the distance. Already, the next wave of people were closing in with their weapons.

Shizuo ducked as a blade whizzed through the spot where his ear had been, and kicked the person who had thrown it. The knife-thrower went flying back into a group of people holding sticks, making them all collapse into a pile. He was tempted to pick up the knife and throw it back, to see how much _they _liked it, but he held himself back, if only just barely. Instead, he stepped into that pile of bodies, picked up each of their stupid weapons, and bent or broke them in two.

After each weapon had been destroyed, he flung the remains at whoever was foolish enough to try coming at him when he was busy. He took down at least three more people that way, and they collapsed as if they had been struck by a car.

For a moment, standing on that pile of bodies, Shizuo stared out into the open field, and nobody came forward to challenge him. There was a breath of silence, a silent sigh of defeated resignation from the others on the field as they measured their eighty-to-one odds and found it not in their favor. Then, Shizuo flung away the last of the ruined weapons, chose a random direction, and lunged.

.

He didn't wait to see if everyone had been taken down. He couldn't care less about the people on the field right now. All he wanted was to prove a point, to himself.

_I still love him_, he thought, and the knowledge hurt like a knife cutting to the bone. _I loved him enough to fight through fifty people just to see him the first time, and I'll fight through a hundred or two hundred or even a thousand to see him now._

He looked at his hands, and saw that they still hadn't stopped shaking. He clenched them into fists, and turned toward the warehouse, silent and empty and abandoned in the darkness. For a moment, he was filled with a wild hope. The first time, Izaya had been waiting for him inside. Maybe this time would be the same.

There were people still stumbling away from him, still broken and groaning bodies on the ground, but there was no one left to stop him. Shizuo strode toward the warehouse doors. He had been here nearly every day for the past few years. It felt like coming home.

He opened the door, and stepped into a puddle of liquid. He realized what it was just in time.

The fire seemed to fill the inside of the warehouse in an instant.

Shizuo tore out one of the warehouse doors, and tossed it onto the ground. It made a temporary bridge, just barely big enough for him to take a few running steps, and leap over the worst of the flames.

He landed on cracked concrete, and straightened to see everything - everything that was left - doused in gasoline and set on fire. He searched the room, but found no sign of Izaya anywhere.

"_Izaya_," he screamed, furious and terrified all at once. Izaya was crazy, but he wouldn't be _suicidal_.

But no, he knew better than anyone else how fragile Izaya really was. That glass heart could be shattered with just a touch, just a word. And he had smashed it into pieces without even realizing it. And he hadn't just stopped there. He had wanted to _break _Izaya, had wanted to hurt him so badly that he would never, ever recover. Now he was getting his wish, with everything going up in flames.

_What is he doing? What have I done?_

The world became black and glowing red, searing heat and crackling flames. The glow of burning metal hurt Shizuo's eyes. The acrid stench of smoke and burning wood and weeds filled the air. Underneath it all, Shizuo could smell gasoline, so much that it must have soaked through the ground.

"_Izaya_," he screamed again, and again, until his voice broke.

He was not going to leave here alive, not until he had pulled Izaya out. Then, he was going to smack Izaya upside the head and shake him until his bones rattled loose for pulling such a stunt. Then he was going to confess, once and for all, that he had been lying about the Devil's Rage, had been lying about the memory loss, had been lying about everything, ever since the very beginning.

The smoke made it hard to breathe, made it hard to draw in enough oxygen to keep screaming, but he did it anyway. He could barely hear anything past the crackling and roaring of the flames consuming anything that burned. The heat pressed down on his skin like a scalding iron, and he could barely see anything but dim, hazy shadows through the smoke. Still, he searched on, with fumbling fingers and unsteady steps, gritting his teeth through the pain.

He touched something metal, so hot that it seared his fingers and sent him reeling back. Shizuo closed his eyes and tried to envision the warehouse without all the flames. He realized that this must be one of the steel beams that went all the way down to the floor, the one that leaned at such an odd angle into the wall. He tried to follow its dim shape in the smoke, but it was too difficult to see.

Shizuo didn't have time to hesitate. He took a few steps back, and then ran forward blindly, trusting his footing to memory and luck. The fire and smoke seemed to writhe underneath his feet, and Shizuo tried not to think about what would happen if he fell.

At the end, just when he had run out of momentum, he made one final lunge, and grabbed onto the windowsill. He had misjudged slightly, and his fingers screamed as they were suddenly forced to take the full brunt of his weight, as he hung down from the alcove high up in the warehouse wall.

Every muscle in his body was screaming, both from lack of oxygen, and from pain. He had fought at least a hundred people outside, and that had been after a long day of running around the city.

At last, he pulled himself up, just enough to draw his fist back and smash through the window.

His fist went through nothing. The window was open.

Shizuo dragged himself higher up, incredulous, and looked through the open space where the window had been at the ground. It was two stories down, and the sight made him dizzy.

He looked up, and saw, finally, the reason why he had never been able to catch Izaya coming in and out of the warehouse through the doors like a normal person.

There were handrails, clearly meant for service personnel, leading from the window to the roof. Shizuo grabbed onto one, grateful that it wasn't burning hot like the inside of the warehouse was, and pulled himself out into the open air.

.

Izaya was not on the roof.

Shizuo spun around, searching, his breathing verging on the edge of panic. He had been so _sure_, but what if Izaya really was still in there?

He tried to scream, but nothing came out. With a shock, Shizuo realized that he had lost his voice.

_No_, he thought, agonized by guilt and uncertainty. _Not like this. Please, don't let things between us end like this. _He had to see Izaya one last time, had to ask when he had written that note on his desk.

If only he hadn't missed all those signs that something was wrong. If only he had asked the right questions. If only he hadn't been so terrified of breaking Izaya, of hurting him, only to break him and hurt him and kill him anyway.

The fire was raging into the night sky, gasoline saturated the air, and the sizzling of burning metal filled in the gaps between the outraged screaming from below. Shizuo stumbled to the edge of the roof, coughing to clear his lungs of the smoke that had filled it, and screamed and screamed and screamed for someone who never answered.


	19. Epilogue

The sky was a brilliant shade of red-orange, so deep and endless that Shizuo felt as if he were drowning under an ocean of blood.

Shizuo closed his eyes and let the sound of the wind carry him away.

He was lying on his back on the roof, resting on the warm tiles, listening to the sounds of people beneath him, screaming and yelling. It was a familiar sound to him now, one that seemed to fit in with the color of the sky and the numbness in his chest.

There was a sudden clatter against the roof tiles.

Shizuo opened his eyes, but didn't move his head to look. To his surprise, there was a raven, its glossy black wings shining in the sunlight, not two feet away from him. It poked its beak into the cracks between the roof tiles, searching for something.

Its movements were so comical that Shizuo almost laughed, but he held his breath instead, not wanting to scare it away. It didn't have to know that its search was futile, and he enjoyed watching it settle its wings and hop about.

Perhaps he had been lying on the roof so long that the raven simply considered him a part of the scenery. It came closer and closer, showing absolutely no fear at all, until its wings were centimeters away from reach.

At last, just to see if he could, Shizuo reached out gently with one finger -

And the raven cawed loudly and fluttered away in a panic of wings and feathers, rising high up into the air, and flying out of sight within several moments.

Shizuo sighed, and put his hand back under his head.

"It's 5, Heiwajima-san." A voice interrupted his thoughts, gruff but respectful.

Shizuo sat up, and looked down at where the guard in his black uniform stood, holding the door open. "Okay," he said easily. "I'll be right down."

He swung down, balancing on two ledges before reaching the ground. The guard watched him with a mixture of fascination and horror. They still hadn't gotten used to the fact that someone like him could parkour up the side of a building that easily. Shizuo didn't mind if they stared, as long as he could keep the roof to himself. It was nice to have a place to be alone and undisturbed, sometimes.

They had taken him in for testing today, and the brain-numbing fog had not entirely left his head. It was as if he were suffering the after-effects of Devil's Rage all over again, with no energy left to do anything but stare upwards into the eerie color of the sky.

After the warehouse had burned and he had been arrested, Shizuo had gone through the next few days in a numb haze. Faces and locations changed in front of his eyes, but never the face he wanted to see in the place he had lost. No one had questioned whether or not he had actually burned the warehouse, not when it was obvious that he had been there, and that he had already hurt so many other people. What was one more crime, added on to all of that?

When it came out that Izaya had been the one to tip off the police, Shizuo hadn't known whether to be angry or to laugh. So it really had all been a game to Izaya, after all, and everything had gone the way he had planned. He had been a fool for trusting that crooked smile, that lilting voice. He had been used as a pawn up until the very end.

He had figured it out, eventually. The words on his desk had been a trap, planted there to lure him to the warehouse one last time, to frame him and get him arrested. All that time spent together, and he still hadn't learned his lesson. He still had fallen for Izaya's lies.

For months afterward, he imagined the hundreds of thousands of ways he would exact his revenge, would make Izaya pay. In his mind, he uprooted street signs and buses and railings, threw them at that infuriating smile, chased him over rooftops and alleyways until he had Izaya trapped against a wall, a hand against his throat. He made himself sick, imagining bruises forming on that pale skin, remembering broken fingers and silent tears, but he did it anyway.

_Never again, _he swore to himself. He knew the score now. And even if he would never feel whole again, at least he would never be used again. He was going to bide his time here, in this hell of a prison, and pay the price of his mistakes.

Then, sooner or later, he would be free, and Izaya would have hell to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you somehow managed to finish this monster of a story, wow, thank you! You are either an angel or a masochist, or possibly both.
> 
> I think I tortured myself a lot while writing this, mostly because it's just an unending, bleak, hellscape of a story that didn't have a chance at a happy ending, but also because it was painfully personal. I honestly didn't want to share some parts of this story. I think it's ugly, overdramatic, very pessimistic, preachy, and just not really good.
> 
> That said! I'm in a much happier place now than where I was when I wrote this! I actually wrote this a year ago, got stuck on the ending, figured out how to write myself out of a corner at 12AM just now and cut out 3 chapters or so at the end and - bam, now I can wash my hands of this and mark it complete.
> 
> If possible, if you just skipped to this last chapter and don't want to read 50k words of angst -> go over to Darlings and read that and comment on that instead. I'd rather not look at this fic for a while, not until my emotions have settled.


End file.
